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Emotion Processing of Major, Minor, and Dissonant Chords

Authors:
Karen Johanne Pallesen at Aarhus University Hospital
Karen Johanne Pallesen
Elvira Brattico at Aarhus University
Elvira Brattico
Christopher J. Bailey at Aarhus University Hospital
Christopher J. Bailey
Antti Korvenoja at Helsinki University Central Hospital
Antti Korvenoja
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Abstract

Musicians and nonmusicians listened to major, minor, and dissonant musical chords while their BOLD brain responses were registered with functional magnetic resonance imaging. In both groups of listeners, minor and dissonant chords, compared with major chords, elicited enhanced responses in several brain areas, including the amygdala, retrosplenial cortex, brain stem, and cerebellum, during passive listening but not during memorization of the chords. The results indicate that (1) neural processing in emotion-related brain areas is activated even by single chords, (2) emotion processing is enhanced in the absence of cognitive requirements, and (3) musicians and nonmusicians do not differ in their neural responses to single musical chords during passive listening.
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Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1060: 450–453 (2005). © 2005 New York Academy of Sciences.
doi: 10.1196/annals.1360.047
Emotion Processing of Major, Minor,
and Dissonant Chords
A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study
KAREN JOHANNE PALLESEN,a,b ELVIRA BRATTICO,c
CHRISTOPHER BAILEY,a ANTTI KORVENOJA,d JUHA KOIVISTO,b
ALBERT GJEDDE,a AND SYNNÖVE CARLSONb
aCenter of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience and PET Centre,
Aarhus University Hospital, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
bNeuroscience Unit, Helsinki Brain Research Center, Institute of Biomedicine/
Physiology, cCognitive Brain Research Unit, Helsinki Brain Research Center,
University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
dFunctional Brain Imaging Unit, Helsinki Brain Research Center,
00029 Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland
ABSTRACT: Musicians and nonmusicians listened to major, minor, and disso-
nant musical chords while their BOLD brain responses were registered with
functional magnetic resonance imaging. In both groups of listeners, minor and
dissonant chords, compared with major chords, elicited enhanced responses in
several brain areas, including the amygdala, retrosplenial cortex, brain stem,
and cerebellum, during passive listening but not during memorization of the
chords. The results indicate that (1) neural processing in emotion-related brain
areas is activated even by single chords, (2) emotion processing is enhanced in
the absence of cognitive requirements, and (3) musicians and nonmusicians do
not differ in their neural responses to single musical chords during passive
listening.
KEYWORDS: emotions; music; musical competence; working memory;
emotion–cognition interaction
INTRODUCTION
Major, minor, and dissonance in music are commonly said to cause happy, sad,
and unpleasant experiences, respectively. Behavioral studies have shown that these
emotional effects may be elicited by brief melodic fragments and even by isolated
chords in musicians as well as nonmusicians.1 Dissonance presented in melodies
was previously related to activity in the right parahippocampal gyrus and right
Address for correspondence: Karen Johanne Pallesen, Center for Functionally Integrative
Neuroscience, Aarhus University Hospital, Nørrebrogade 44, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Voice:
+45-89494095; fax: +45-89494400.
karenjohanne@pet.auh.dk
451PALLESEN et al.: EMOTION PROCESSING OF CHORDS
precuneus brain areas.2 Moreover, the downregulating effects of appraisal and
cognition on emotion processes were demonstrated in terms of amygdalar responses
to aversive visual stimuli.3 In spite of the well-proven power of music to elicit posi-
tive or negative emotional experiences, the mechanisms for emotional regulation
have not so far been studied in this domain. Because musical competence, reflected
in the neurophysiological auditory responses, implies a more analytical approach to
musical sounds, this may also reflect in the neural emotion processes. We studied
whether (1) simple musical chords activate brain areas previously associated with
emotion analysis, (2) cognitive evaluation has an influence on these responses, and
(3) musical competence influences the emotional responses.
METHODS
Twenty-one right-handed individuals (mean age 26; 14 females), 11 subjects with
a classical music education (musicians), and 10 subjects with no musical training
(nonmusicians), were subjected to nine piano chords belonging to three pitch classes
(major, minor, dissonant), each spanning three octaves from A3 to A5. The subjects
either listened passively to the chords or performed an n-back working memory task
with respect to pitch. After the brain scanning, the subjects were asked to rate the
emotional connotations of each chord on two 11-point scales (as unpleasant-pleasant
and sad-happy, respectively). In all conditions, subjects pressed a button after each
chord to maintain motor-related brain activity constant across conditions. Magnetic
resonance images were acquired with a 1.5-T Siemens Sonata scanner. Analysis was
performed using FMRIB Software Library (FSL, Oxford, UK). Each subject’s struc-
tural and functional data were coregistered to the MNI152 standard template.
FIGURE 1. BOLD responses that were larger during passive listening to minor chords
than during passive listening to major chords, including the amygdala, retrosplenial cortex,
brain stem, and cerebellum. The responses in this contrast were not present during working
memory. Group results are overlayed on transverse sections and inflated cortex of a single
individual (corrected for multiple comparisons: Z > 3, P < .05).
452 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
RESULTS
During passive listening, minor and dissonant chords elicited larger BOLD re-
sponses than did major chords in several brain areas, including the amygdala, retro-
splenial cortex, brain stem, and cerebellum (FIG. 1 represents the minor versus major
chords contrast). Together with the thalamus and brain stem, the amygdala has been
implicated in the evolution of an adaptive “alarm system.”4 These differential
responses to minor and dissonant chords, compared with major chords, were
not present during the pitch working memory task, requiring cognitive evaluation of
the chords. Although musicians rated minor chords as sadder and dissonant chords
as more unpleasant, than did nonmusicians (FIG. 2), there were no significant differ-
ences between the two groups of subjects in the neural responses to the chords
during passive listening.
CONCLUSION
The results provide evidence for a role of emotional reactions to isolated musical
sound units in the musical experience. Moreover, they confirm that cognitive evalu-
ation leads to decreased emotional responsiveness. We suggest that the amygdala–
brain stem responses, during passive listening, to minor and dissonant chords, com-
pared with major chords, reflect a mechanism that automatically interprets these
chords as being potentially alarming stimuli. The group difference in the emotional
ratings of the chords, but not in the neural responses, may reflect a musician’s ability
to recognize and categorize the chords in terms of the conventional emotional
connotations, rather than an effective enhanced emotional experience.
[Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing financial
interests.]
FIGURE 2. Emotional ratings (mean ± SE) of major, minor, and dissonant chords.
Musicians rated dissonant chords as significantly more unpleasant, and minor chords as
significantly more sad than nonmusicians did (∗P < .05).
453PALLESEN et al.: EMOTION PROCESSING OF CHORDS
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... Empirical evidence has supported that music structures are largely related to emotional responses evoked by musical excerpts (e.g., Cunningham & Sterling, 1988;Dalla Bella et al., 2001;Dolgin & Adelson, 1990;Gagnon & Peretz, 2003;Hunter et al., 2010;Juslin, 2013;Kastner & Crowder, 1990;Pallesen et al., 2005;Terwogt & Van Grinsven, 1991; for reviews, see Eerola &Vuoskoski, 2013, andJuslin &Laukka, 2003). For instance, major modes and fast tempi evoke happiness, whereas minor modes and slow tempi evoke sadness (e.g., Dalla Bella et al., 2001;Gabrielsson & Juslin, 1996;Peretz et al., 1998). ...
... Another possible limitation of the present experiment is the need for more rigorous control of the participants' previous musical knowledge. For example, in Pallesen et al. (2005), nonmusicians (N = 10) and musicians (N = 11) judged the emotional valence of major, minor, and dissonant chords. In general, both groups rated the musical chords similarly. ...
... In summary, this study demonstrated that the evaluative functions of musical excerpts were transferred to abstract figures through equivalence class formation. Moreover, interesting issues related to the modulatory effect on the transfer of function of distinctive aspects of musical stimuli such as the combination of musical properties (i.e., mode and tempo; Koelsch, 2005;Peretz et al., 1998) and the formal history of musical education (e.g., Bakker et al., 2015;Pallesen et al., 2005;Steinbeis & Koelsch, 2011;Zhou et al., 2019), remain to be answered. Doing so could provide a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of using emotional stimuli in equivalence class formation experiments and in the phenomenon of transfer of function. ...
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