Film music influences how viewers relate to movie characters.

Abstract

Film music has powerful aesthetic effects on the perception and understanding of screen content, but does it also influence viewers’ sense of connection with movie characters thereby creating antecedents for an experience of empathy? Participants viewed clips showing characters’ neutral or ambiguous reaction to an event, person, or object. Viewers rated character likability and their certainty about characters’ thoughts in three conditions: thriller music, melodrama music, and no music. The effect of music conditions differed significantly from the no music condition. Compared to melodramatic music, thriller music significantly lowered likability and certainty about characters’ thoughts. During subsequent cued recall of screen content, thriller music increased anger attributions and lowered sadness attributions, while melodramatic music increased love attributions and lowered fear attributions. The study provides evidence that film music can influence character likability and the certainty of knowing the character’s thoughts, which are antecedents of empathetic concern and emphatic accuracy. Thus film music may be regarded as modulating antecedents of empathic concern and empathic accuracy.