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Changing the Interval Content of Algorithmically Generated Music Changes the Emotional Interpretation of Visual Images

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Sound, Music, and Motion (CMMR 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 8905))

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Abstract

The ability of music to influence the emotional interpretation of visual contexts has been supported in several psychological studies. However, we still lack a significant body of empirical studies examining the ways in which specific structural characteristics of music may alter the affective processing of visual information. The present study suggests a way to use algorithmically generated music to assess the effect of sensory dissonance on the emotional judgment of a visual scene. This was examined by presenting participants with the same abstract animated film paired with consonant, dissonant and no music. The level of sensory dissonance was controlled in this experiment by employing different interval sets for the two contrasting background music conditions. Immediately after viewing the clip, participants were asked to complete a series of bipolar adjective ratings representing the three connotative dimensions (valence, activity and potency). Results revealed that relative to the control group of no music, consonant background music significantly biased the affective impact by guiding participants toward positive valence ratings. This finding is discussed in terms of interval content theory within the general perspective of post-tonal music theory and David Temperley’s probabilistic framework (model of tonalness).

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Prof. Ian Cross, Prof. Sarah Hawkins, Dr. Emmanuel A. Stamatakis, and to all the researchers at the Centre for Music and Science (Cambridge University). Thanks to Andrew Goldman for his very constructive comments on this paper. Thanks to Dr. Christopher Hopkins, Prof. Anson Call and Prof. Steve Herrnstadt (ISU). Thank you to the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions that improved the article considerably. This work was conducted at Cambridge University and is supported by a Queens’ College Walker Studentship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Music and Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Fernando Bravo

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  1. Fernando Bravo
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Correspondence to Fernando Bravo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS - LMA, Marseille, France

    Mitsuko Aramaki

  2. Toulon-Var University and CNRS - LMA, Marseille, France

    Olivier Derrien

  3. CNRS - LMA, Marseille, France

    Richard Kronland-Martinet

  4. CNRS - LMA, Marseille, France

    Sølvi Ystad

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Bravo, F. (2014). Changing the Interval Content of Algorithmically Generated Music Changes the Emotional Interpretation of Visual Images. In: Aramaki, M., Derrien, O., Kronland-Martinet, R., Ystad, S. (eds) Sound, Music, and Motion. CMMR 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8905. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12976-1_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12976-1_29

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-12975-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-12976-1

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