Music and Emotion

Emotions are brief and intense

Mood refers to less intense but more prolonged experiences 

Basic emotions are associated with survival 

Music in language/emotional prosidy - parentese

Circumplex model of emotions: Russell, 1980

Organises emotions in terms of phsyiological arousal and affect

Captures the continous changes in emotional expression in music 

Physiological Components of Emotions

Behavioural response 

• Fight or flight
• E.g. fear = running, happy = smiling 

Autonomic response 

• Increases in sympathetic nervous system
• Decreases in parasympathetic nervous system
• Bodily changes
• Dialated pupils, accellerated heart beat, activates sweat glands

Hormonal response

• Adrenal cortex secretes steroids to make glucose available to muscles

Brain areas involved with emotions 

• Amygdala
• Orbito-frontal cortex
• Hypothalamus

Affects of damage to the brain

• Damage to the amygdala alters emotional responses - lesions in the amygdala lead to decrease in emotional responses (La Bar et al, 1995) 
• Damage to orbio-frontal cortex impairs ability to identify facial and vocal emotional expressions (Hornak et al, 1996)

Psychological models of emotion

James-Lange theory

Emotion producing stimulus >>> Physiological response >>> Feeling of emotion

Cannon-Baird theory

Emotion…