Book Review: Patrik Juslin & John Sloboda,Handbook of Music and Emotion: Theory,Research,Application

Research on music and emotion fell on hard times in the second half of the twentieth century. The interest in emotion was overpowered by research about its big brother, cognition. The information-processing paradigm smothered interest in emotion research for decades, brandmarking emotions as too “fuzzy”, as they would “. . . unnecessarily complicate the cognitive-scientific enterprise” (Gardner, 1987, p. 6). To make matters worse, music has often been called “the language of emotion” (Cooke, 1959). To combine music and emotion into one project in the heyday of cognitive psychology (1970s) was tantamount to academic suicide. As a consequence, “. . . the field [of music & emotion] barely survived until the 80s . . .” (Juslin & Sloboda, 2011, p. 934).

When interest in the psychology of emotion gradually returned the late 1980s, it happened in a new guise, still heavily dependent on the cognitive paradigm – as evidenced by the success of the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion. The revised interest in emotion trickled down to the field of music and emotion, which has been blossoming for the past two decades.

This new trend became apparent in 2001, when Oxford University Press published a volume entitled Music and Emotion, edited by Juslin and Sloboda (Juslin & Sloboda, 2001). Less than a decade later, the authors have released a new, expanded edition. Its new status (“handbook”) is a reflection of the increasing acceptance of music and emotion as a mainstream sub-discipline of both music research and psychology. Slowly but surely, other fields of research are beginning to grow aware of music as a powerful instrument to influence emotions, for example as a technique of mood induction in different branches of psychology, or as an antidote for pain and anxiety in medicine and biology (Bernatzky, Presch, Anderson, & Panksepp, 2011).

Compared with the previous volume, the new handbook contains nearly twice the number of pages (976 vs. 498). It consists of 33 chapters, 11 of which are (major) revisions of chapters in the first volume, and 22 being entirely new contributions. All of the authors of the individual chapters are well-recognized experts in their respective fields.

The book is divided into 8 broad sections. “Part I Overture” and “Part VIII Encore” are written by the editors. The middle six sections consist of five chapters each: “Multidisciplinary Perspectives” (Part II),”Measurement” (Part III), “Music Making” (Part IV), “Music Listening” (Part V), “Development, Personality, and Social Factors” (Part VI), and “Applications” (Part VII). The organization of chapters into sections seems more coherent and natural than in the preceding volume.

In Part I Overture, the editors introduce the aims and organization of the book. This is followed by a list of working definitions of key terms to which all contributing authors were requested to refer to throughout their chapters. This intervention is a sensible if not necessary precaution to ensure some internal consistency of the volume. The attempt to share key terminology facilitated cross-referencing between chapters, as well as building bridges for the reader (who doesn’t have to adapt to new definitions in each chapter). The distinction of terms such as affect, mood, and emotions, and also concepts like perception vs. induction of emotion is observed in many chapters. The editors also conclude the book with a commentary in PART VIII Encore, in which they first present a short summary of the history of the field before identifying the major challenges for the future.

In Part II Multidisciplinary Perspectives, the relationship between music and emotion is discussed from different viewpoints: philosophy (Davies), musicology (Cook & Dibben), psychology (Juslin & Sloboda), neurobiology (Peretz), anthropology (Becker) and sociology (DeNora). In order to address a broad range of readers, every chapter in Part II begins with a short introduction to the respective discipline’s approach to music and emotion. After that, every chapter addresses strikingly different phenomena. This section lives up to its name “multidisciplinary” (rather than “interdisciplinary”) by presenting who does what in a set of juxtaposed disciplines, rather than exchanges between them. While the advantages of a multidisciplinary approach and disciplinary cross-fertilization are clear, many questions remain to be answered. The presented approaches are still remarkably distinct and it is unclear how (or if) the presented approaches will benefit from one another in concrete ways in future. Hopefully, time and the common platform provided by this handbook will allow these disciplines grow closer together to achieve the maximum benefit for all.

In Part III Measurement, the focus moves to more empirical and technical issues surrounding the measurement of musical emotions. In total, the section provides a good coverage of both well-established methods (“Self-report measures and models”, “Psychophysiological measures”, “Functional neuroimaging”) and newer, more exploratory methods (“Continuous self-report methods”, “Indirect perceptual, cognitive, and behavioural measures”). The latter two chapters are particularly interesting.

Schubert’s review of continuous self-response methods is a thorough introduction to the benefits and shortcomings of various methodological possibilities including technical aspects, data analysis, and relationships with common theories of emotion. Shortcomings include the cognitive overload to which subjects are exposed and the problem of time synchronization. If these problems can be solved, continuous self-report methods can play a central role in future research, especially when combined with other time-sensitive methods, such as neuroimaging techniques. Such multi-measurement approaches could provide synchronized data and enable direct comparison between objective neurological data and subjective measures.

The chapter by Västfjäll, on indirect measures of emotions, is a refreshing introduction to techniques which have not yet been broadly implemented into research on music and emotion, but are already being used in affective science. These methods seem to have several benefits. Indirect measures enable the researcher to conceal the aim of an experiment from the participants in an appropriate way and therefore to reduce bias. They also offer insights into changes in the mentioned psychological dimensions (perception, cognition, behaviour) while or after listening to music. The significance of indirect data may go well beyond merely identifying a specific emotion. Such data can additionally provide insights into the accompanying psychological changes, which can help us understand motivations for music consumption: listeners may want to experience these changes in perception, cognition or behaviour, so they can be regarded as implicit goals. In other words, it is not necessarily the specific emotion that listeners strive for, but possibly the concrete perceptual, cognitive or behavioural change that accompanies the emotion. Of course, activity in other emotional components such as physiology may occur at the same time, yet in this account they do not play an essential role.

The remaining chapters in the section, as listed above, deal with more established methods of measurement. Subjective self-report methods (Chapter 8, Zentner & Eerola) have the longest history in research, beginning with the classical studies in the early twentieth century (Hevner, Seashore etc.). The variety of self-report measures is accordingly large, ranging from the use of different scale-types, verbal vs. non-verbal evaluations, similarity tasks, etc. The need for a standard instrument to measure musical emotions is still current and discussed by the authors, and Zentner himself has presented a substantial contribution on this topic (Zentner, Grandjean, & Scherer, 2008): the GEMS (Geneva Emotional Music Scales).

The chapters in Part IV Music Making are concerned with emotions from the perspective of the performer, while composing (“Emotion and composition in classical music: historiometric perspectives” by Simonton; “The role of structure in the musical expression of emotions” by Gabrielsson & Lindström), in daily life and practice (“Emotion and motivation in the lives of performers” by Wood & MacPherson), and in the performance situation (“The role of negative emotions in performance anxiety” by Kenny; “Expression and communication of emotion in music performance” by Juslin and Timmers).

Simonton opens his chapter by summarizing his extensive research from the 1980s, in which he analysed the “originality” of a huge database of classical compositions and found a systematic relationship between originality and popularity: an inverted U-shape curve, comparable to the Wundt curve. Simonton’s results suggest that a moderate amount of melodic originality is a strong predictor for commercial success, compared with low and high extents of originality. It would be interesting, but a major undertaking, to transfer these results to modern musical genres or popular music, and evaluate if these widespread preferences for moderate extents of complexity/originality are a timeless and “universally” applicable mechanism. To do this we would need a large database of automatic transcriptions of sound files of popular music – a task for the Music Information Retrieval community.

In Part V Music Listening, which constitutes the heart of the volume, the focus shifts to the receiving end of music and emotion: the listener’s musical experience. The first chapter, “Music in everyday life” by John Sloboda, summarizes the status quo in this young field by presenting 10 propositions about music in everyday life. Each proposition is accompanied by supporting literature and implications for emotion in general. Sloboda defines the term “everyday music” by identifying 10 ways in which it differs from “non-everyday music”. In the discussion, he raises fundamental issues about the future of music and emotion research. For example, “. . . for the most of its short life, the psychological study of emotional responses to music has focused primarily on the non-everyday . . . there is a strong cultural tendency to elevate the aesthetic discourse of music over the practical” (p. 511). These claims are striking, especially in light of the “everyday” nature of musical use throughout evolution. By paying the biggest importance to the “non-everyday”, we treat minorities as if they were majorities. Results which should be restricted to a small variety of people and situations are often interpreted as if they were applicable to the general population. That suggests that the (still) popular tendency of favouring classical Western music as musical stimuli in experiments has to be re-thought. The growing tendency of people to record their daily activities in social networks is a promising new opportunity for research on music in everyday life (tip: Spotify is directly linked to Facebook).

In Chapter 20 “Strong Experiences with Music”, Alf Gabrielsson presents results of his well-known long-term SEM project. The data, which he has been collecting for over two decades, consists of more than 500 participants’ written reports or interviews on “the strongest, most intense experience of music that they have ever had.” The reports cover a wide scope of (emotional) reactions such as being touched or having transcendental sensations or changes in perception. One group of reactions is physiological sensations, which often involve the phenomenon of thrills. That topic is addressed in more detail in the following chapter by David Huron, “Musical Expectancy and Thrills.” Huron bases his argument on theories of musical expectancy and builds on the seminal work of Leonard Meyer before presenting his “ITPRA” theory.

The last chapter in this section, “How does music evoke emotion? Exploring the underlying mechanisms” by Juslin, Liljeström, Västfjäll and Lundqvist, is relevant for many chapters in this volume as well as future research. The centerpiece is a theoretical framework, the BRECVEM model, which proposes seven independent mechanisms by which music is capable of evoking genuine emotions in the listener. The seven proposed mechanisms are: Brain stem reflexes, Rhythmic entrainment, Evaluative conditioning, Contagion, Visual Imagery, Episodic memory and Musical Expectancy. Regardless of whether this list is complete or will be revised following future research, it clearly will have (and has already had) a big impact on research about music and emotion. Many of the chapters in this volume already refer to the BRECVEM framework and try to orientate themselves to it. Some researchers in the past have proposed the several emotion-eliciting mechanisms in response to music (e.g., Berlyne, 1971; Meyer, 1956), yet the current framework is the first concrete effort in this respect. The existence of multiple mechanisms for emotion can help us to explain different emotional reactions to the same pieces of music as well as apparently contradictory research results, for example in neuroimaging when different studies report different patterns of brain activity.

Part VI deals with “Development, Personality, and Social Factors”. In Chapter 24, “Preference, Personality, and Emotion”, Rentfrow and McDonald first offer a comprehensive introduction to research on both music preference and the psychology of personality. They then revisit their 2003 paper in which a large sample of American students rated music preferences for 14 different music genres; these ratings were then compared with personality measures. Factor analysis showed a four-factor structure of music preference: reflective & complex (classical, jazz, folk, blues), intense & rebellious (rock, alternative), upbeat & conventional (pop, soundtrack, religious, country), and energetic & rhythmic (rap, soul, electronica). At first glance, the factor labels seem somewhat inappropriate: Neither blues nor folk music are known for their structural complexity, but rather the opposite, as they are more defined by their clear arrangements/structure and repetitive nature. The entire work is well-conducted, and strongly pleads for this four-factor structure (other studies suggesting similar factors), yet raises some further questions. Is labelling music by genre a reasonable approach for investigating music preferences? Measuring musical preferences by having participants rate specific genres seems problematic because it adds another level of abstraction and therefore leaves room for interpretation. The genre called Alternative has a low predictive value, as it can be interpreted differently by different people and in fact refers to a range of musical styles as diverse as punk, gothic or Britpop. The authors are aware of this problem and consider that the future of research on music preferences might benefit from different ways of labelling music (rather than “genre”). They instead propose “musical attributes” such as tempo, emotional content and instrumentation as possible structuring factors. Inspiration for further parameters could be gained by analysing “social tags” in online music networks (Ferrer, 2011; Ferrer & Eerola, 2010). While the authors note that “. . . the social connotations that they (music genres) evoke change over time” (p. 684), we should also consider that the meaning of specific genres changes over time. A 50-year-old who isn’t up to date with popular music developments might have a completely different idea of “pop” music than a 16-year-old.

The following two chapters deal with very different topics (The influence of affect on music choice; and Politics, mediation, social context and public use), but agree about the central role of social context. Of the trinity of factors that supposedly determine emotional responses to music – the listener, the music itself, and the situation – it is uncontested that the situation (which often equals the social context) is the most under-researched of the three. This is even more surprising when we consider theories of the origins of music. In most evolutionary theories, music was supposedly born out of social necessities. Social occurrences accompanied by music may ultimately explain the connection between music and emotion.

PART VII, Applications, presents a selection of current social applications of research in music and emotion. In these applications, music is exploited as a tool for emotion induction in different situations in everyday life. The chapters in this section are entitled “Music education” (Hallam), “Music therapy” (Thaut & Wheeler), “Music, health and well-being” (Hanser), “Music as a source of emotion in film” (Cohen), and “Music and Marketing” (North & Hargreaves).

The last chapter by North and Hargreaves was particularly refreshing due to its unusual marketing perspective, in which music is “. . . simply as a means to another end, namely profit” (p. 909) – similar to Sloboda’s chapter on “Music in everyday life” in which music was also considered in an everyday environment. Yet the approach is quite different as it does not highlight the listener’s or recipient’s perspective, but that of individuals/institutions that use music to manipulate emotion in daily life (e.g., radio, advertising agencies). Both chapters are also examples for the growing trend of regarding music as dynamic and investigating it in its “natural environment”, as a part of daily life (Clarke, 2005; DeNora, 2000).

In spite of its occasional weaknesses, this is a great book. It reflects the rapid growth in size and quality of the field in the last 9 years (since the first edition was published). The editors’ claim on the cover that the book “will be a valuable resource for researchers of all career stages (and all interested readers)” is certainly valid. The book comprehensively covers the main current trends and findings, as well as relevant “historical” perspectives and future outlooks. Several shortcomings of the first edition have been amended, e.g., the selection and organization of the chapters, and discrepancies in definitions and usage of basic terms. If there is one day a third volume of this kind, we can look forward to an even broader coverage and integration of work in neighbouring fields, in addition to the further deepening of existing lines of research.