Correlation analysis of continuous emotional response to music: Correcting for the effects of serial correlation

Abstract

Publications of research concerning continuous emotional responses to music are increasing. The developing interest brings with it a need to understand the problems associated with the analysis of time series data. This article investigates growing concern in the use of conventional Pearson correlations for comparing time series data. Using continuous data collected in response to selected pieces of music, with two emotional dimensions for each piece, two falsification studies were conducted. The first study consisted of a factor analysis of the individual responses using the original data set and its first-order differenced transformation. The differenced data aligned according to theoretical constraints better than the untransformed data, supporting the use of first-order difference transformations. Using a similar method, the second study specifically investigated the relationship between Pearson correlations, difference transformations and the critical correlation coefficient above which the conventional correlation analysis remains internally valid. A falsification table was formulated and quantified through a hypothesis index function. The study revealed that correlations of undifferenced data must be greater than 0.75 for a valid interpretation of the relationship between bivariate emotional response time series data. First and second-order transformations were also investigated and found to be valid for correlation coefficients as low as 0.24. Of the three version of the data (untransformed, first-order differenced, and second-order differenced), first-order differenced data produced the fewest problems with serial correlation, whilst remaining a simple and meaningful transformation.