The experience of music emotion in older adults with hearing loss and hearing aids

Abstract

The current study examined the effect of hearing loss and hearing aids in older adults on the experience of music emotion. Fifty-four participants aged 60 and above were recruited, including 18 with normal hearing (NH), 18 with hearing impairment (HI), and 18 with hearing impairment who use hearing aids (HA). Arousal ratings and skin conductance responses were obtained from participants across 24 extracts of film music that were previously validated as conveying one of four emotions: happy, sad, fearful, and tender. These four emotions represent a crossing of arousal (high and low) and valence (positive and negative). For each group, an “arousal range” was calculated as the average arousal ratings of happy and fearful excerpts, minus the average arousal ratings of tender and sad excerpts. A similar scheme was used for each group to determine a “skin conductance range”. For negatively-valenced music, groups did not differ with regard to arousal of skin conductance. For positively valenced music, NH and HA yielded a larger arousal range than did HI. A similar pattern emerged from the analysis of skin conductance range. Results will be discussed with regard to the acoustic cues to emotion in music and signal processing methods in hearing aids.