Unit:
Διαπανεπιστημιακό ΠΜΣ Βασική και Εφαρμοσμένη Γνωσιακή ΕπιστήμηLibrary of the School of Science
Author:
Παπαβασιλείου Πέτρος-Ευθύμιος
Supervisors info:
Μουτούσης Κωνσταντίνος Επίκ. Καθηγητής (Επιβλέπων), Αθανάσιος Πρωτόπαπας Αναπλ. Καθηγητής, Γεώργιος Γυφτοδήμος Καθηγητής
Original Title:
Μουσική συμφωνία και συναισθηματικό σθένος: ο ρόλος της χροιάς, του μουσικού διαστήματος, και της διάρκειας
Translated title:
Musical consonance and emotional valence: the role of timbre, musical interval, and duration
Summary:
Recent investigations on the emotional responses to music focus on the use of
music pieces, which contain a plethora of imponderable characteristics that may
hamper the detection of the specific acoustic properties that contribute to the
evoked emotions. Additionally, the concept of Musical Consonance is usually
defined by the researchers depending on the ratios of the fundamental
frequencies of tones and this definition of consonance is usually used as
synonymous to pleasantness. In the present study we created very simple
(complex tones containing three component frequencies) and short (750, 1500,
and 3000 ms) sound stimuli that constitute musical intervals and we manipulated
their timbre to induce sensory dissonance without disturbing their fundamental
frequencies’ ratios. Our findings suggest that this manipulation was sufficient
for significant differences in emotional valence ratings, and that there are
significant interactions between timbre and musical interval, and between
musical interval and duration in pleasantness/unpleasantness ratings.
Secondarily, we replicated the findings of Koelsch et al. (2006) with musical
excerpts they used in their experiments and we compared these results with the
ones obtained by simple musical stimuli (an A major musical chord constituting
of three complex tones with each tone constituting of three harmonic
frequencies) that were acoustically manipulated in the exact same way as the
musical excerpts. Our findings suggest that: 1) there was a significant
interaction between consonance and duration only for the consonant musical
excerpts, 2) the acoustical manipulation of Koelsch et al. on consonance was
sufficient enough to induce significant differences in emotional valence
ratings even on very simple musical stimuli, 3) the effect of duration on
emotional valence ratings had the opposite trend on musical excerpts than that
of the simple musical stimuli, and 4) the mean ratings of emotional valene were
generally lower than those of the musical excerpts.
Keywords:
Emotional valence, Musical interval, Consonance, Timbre, Duration
