Studies: How They May Help and How They Don't

By now you should have figured out whether or not you’re an emotivist or cognivist, if not go back and read my first post. In this post were going to dig deep down and find what really happens during a study of music and emotion. There’s also a link at the bottom of this post of the song “The Scientist” by Coldplay. I figured it would be appropriate to what we are discussing. If you would like, take a listen while reading this article.

Like I was saying, there are a lot of ongoing studies and previously done studies that deal with music and the affect that it has on our emotions. One of the most common tests is called ‘self reports’. During the self-report the person is asked to listen to a certain type of music and then asked to rate the extent of feelings they were having. Another common type of self-report is when the researcher provides the listener with a list of possible emotions and ask them which one were they experiencing while listening to the music (Hunter 140). Now some of you may be thinking that this isn’t a really valid study. We don’t really know if the listener was telling the truth or not. Not to fear, there are also psychological studies that are going on too. Two studies, which were done in 1997, attempted to measure the emotional and psychological effects of certain types of music. A researcher named Krumhansl’s had his patients listen to six songs that sounded happy, sad, and scary. While the patients listened to the songs, Krumhansl was studying 12 different things. Seven of the things he was studying were related to blood flow; three of them were related to respiration. Along with those he studied skin conductance, and finger temperature. During Krumhansl’s study another study was going on as well, one done by the researcher Nyklíček. Nyklíček was also measuring cardiac and respiratory functions. During the study the patient’s listened to music experts that were happy, agitated, sad, or serene (Hunter 141). Both studies found similar results. Krumhansl’s and Nyklíček study both found that there was a difference between high and low arousal emotions. Krumhansl’s reported that there were also different responses to happy and sad songs. Because of these studies we can see that a certain type of song like a sad song might induce a sad or dreary emotion (Hunter 141).

The problem with these studies is that everyone has different styles of music. What might give me chills might bore you. But still we have this nagging need to find out why music helps calm us down, pump us up, and bring tears. Which helps me bring me to my next point. We can do studies all day long; we can record blood pressure, temperature, and even study skin conductance to certain types of music. But it won’t really help any. Each one us is our own person, that means that we have our own taste in music and our own memories. We were brought up differently and no matter what DNA will always separate us. You can’t really study if a certain type of song has an effect on one person or the next because what might really hit home for me and make me ball my eyes out, just might be nice and soothing for you (Music, Emotion and the Brain). If you have a certain song that really hits home and reminds you of a certain memory, than comment and tell me what that certain song might be. And remember that just because I get emotional listening to “The Scientist” by Coldplay doesn’t mean it will have the same effect on other people.