1. Effects of Mood State upon Musical Perceptions
April 17th, 2015
IUSB Undergraduate Research Conference
Geoffrey D. Trowbridge
& Dr. Igor Juricevic

2. Music and Human Emotion
“Music produces a kind of pleasure that human nature cannot do without.” – Confucius, 5th century B.C.E.
“Music has charms to sooth the savage breast.” – William Congreve, The Mourning Bride (1697)
20th century: Music Therapy
Does the appeal of sad-sounding music increase for listeners in a negative mood state?
How does the typical bias for happy-sounding music interact with contextual factors?

3. “Happy” vs. “Sad” Music
Perceived affect derived from a combination of mode and tempo. (Dalla Bella et. al., 2001)
Mode: indicates whether the key of a piece is major (happy) or minor (sad).
Tempo: indicates the pace of music measured in beats per minute: Fast (happy) or slow (sad).
Theories: Tempo affects arousal (Husain et. al., 2002) while mode supports mood congruency (Shellenberg et. al., 2008).

4. Mood Priming Randomly assigned to read a “happy” or a “sad” story
Dr. Ralph Erber (1991)
Experiences of a young female art student
Positive mood:
Describes a sequence of fortunate events, culminating in the receipt of a scholarship.
Negative mood:
Describes losing her ability to create art due to a rare debilitating case of arthritis.

5. Music Selections 28 musical excerpts, each approx. 30 seconds
One-fourth (7) provided consistently positive affective cues (fast tempo/major mode)
One-fourth (7) provided consistently negative affective cues (slow tempo/minor mode)
Remainder provided mixed affective cues (7 fast/minor, 7 slow/major)

6. Music Selections Selected artists: J.S. Bach Enya W. Amadeus Mozart
Great Big Sea
Frederic Chopin
Massive Attack
James Horner
Yes
Yann Tiersen
The Cure
Dmitri Shostakovich
Queen
Radiohead
King’s X

7. Qualtrics Survey

8. Participants
n = 69
IUSB undergraduate Psychology students (36 women, 3 men)
Social media respondents (18 women, 12 men)
Mean age = 33.6, median age = 25 (range 18-67, SD = 15.92)
Happy group: n = 36, M = 6.06, SD = 0.92
Sad group: n = 33, M = 2.39, SD = 1.14
Mood priming: t(67) = 14.68, p < .001

9. Primed mood * tempo * mode: F(1, 67) = 4.15, p = .046

10. Primed mood * tempo * mode: F(1, 67) = 4.15, p = .046

11. Primed mood * mode: F(1, 67) = 5.09, p = .027

12. Primed mood * mode: F(1, 67) = 5.09, p = .027

13. Fast/Major music paired with any other: t > 4, p < .05

14. Findings
Overall, tempo has a more significant effect upon mood perception and emotional response than does mode.
However, among listeners in a sad mood state, music in a minor mode produces a more positive affective response than it does for those in a happy mood state.
Listeners show a selective preference for up-tempo, major-mode music, regardless of mood state.