Abstract
Instrumental music can seem to tell engrossing stories without the use of words, but it is unclear what leads to this narrativization. Although past work has investigated narrative responses to abstract moving shapes, very little work has studied the emergence of narrative perceptions in response to nonlinguistic sound. We measured narrative responses to wordless Western and Chinese music in participants in the US and in a cluster of villages in a rural part of China using a Narrative Engagement (NE) scale developed specifically for this project. Despite profound differences in media exposure, musical habits, and narrative traditions, narrative listening was employed by many participants and associated with enjoyment in both groups; however, the excerpts that unleashed this response were culture-specific. We show that wordless sound is capable of triggering perceived narratives in two groups of listeners with highly distinct patterns of cultural exposure, reinforcing the notion that narrativization itself is a readily available mode of experiencing music. The particular sounds that trigger narrativization, however, rely on enculturation processes, as demonstrated by the within-culture consistency, but between-culture divergence in the specific excerpts that led to narrative engagement. Narratives can emerge in multiple modalities, including wordless sound, but association patterns specific to individual cultures critically shape how apparently abstract sound patterns come to acquire deep meaning and significance to people.
Highlights
Humans possess a robust tendency to narrativize abstract events
Preliminary pilot work determined that participants in the Dimen group were broadly familiar with the style of Chinese music presented in the experiment, and participants in the Arkansas and Michigan groups were broadly familiar with the style of Western music presented in the experiment, these styles of music were not the ones to which participants tended to listen most frequently, and these specific excerpts were unlikely to be ones that participants had heard prior to the experimental session
Dimen listeners were more likely to imagine a story for Chinese musical excerpts than Western musical excerpts (Western, M = 45%, SD = 34%; Chinese, M = 56%, SD = 34%; t(140) = −4.43, p < 0.001)
Summary
Humans possess a robust tendency to narrativize abstract events. The impulse to narrativize has been characterized as distinctively human, shaping the way people make sense of their lives (McAdams, 2006). In the domain of music, people’s tendency to narrativize, even for music without lyrics, is well-illustrated by the literary scene from Howards End, where Helen hears “heroes and shipwrecks” listening to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony This literary example concisely illustrates the idea that people experience music not just as abstract sequences of sound, but—often—as episodes in an unfolding narrative. What makes people hear music this way? How are their narratives shaped by patterns in the musical piece and by the culture in which they live?
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
