Continuous features of emotion in classical, popular, and game music

Abstract

In the present study, musical emotion was measured continuously for classical, popular and game music. Eight pieces for each genre were used as stimuli. The following computer system was prepared: The screen showed a cursor on a two-dimensional plane spanned by valence (pleasant-unpleasant) and arousal axes. The position of the cursor was manipulated by a mouse and recorded every 0.5 s. In one session, the system continuously recorded the emotional responses of 20 listeners while listening to each piece. In the other session, the listeners listened to each piece without manipulating the mouse, and then pointed out the overall emotional feature of the piece on the two-dimensional plane. The results showed that the valence did not vary largely for any genre. The arousal varied largely for classical music, but not for game music. For popular music, it varied in between classical and game music. For all genres, the overall emotional values of valence and arousal showed almost equal to the maximum or minimum values in the continuous variation, respectively. This implies that the overall emotional features of a musical piece are almost entirely determined by the part which shows the highest degree of emotion in the piece.