Events & News
Colloquium
| Category | Lecture |
| Date | Friday, November 14, 2008 |
| Time | 12:00 pm |
| Location | GS 906 |
| Details | Cognitive Science Brown Bag |
| Speaker | Vladimir Konecni |
| Title | Professor |
| Affiliation | Dept of Psychology, UC-San Diego |
The Relationship Between Music and Emotion
One important aspect the surge of interest in the psychology of music in the past 25 years has been the work on the relationship between music and emotion. A prevalent assumption in this domain is that music is ubiquitous in large part because it is causally linked to emotion. In the talk, a re-evaluation of the key aspects of the research on the direct induction of emotion by music (M E) is presented. An examination of the major published studies and new data reveal weak support for the M E model, in sharp contrast to its general endorsement by both researchers and the music-loving public. The conclusion seems justified instead that music may induce low-grade basic emotions through mediators such as dance and cognitive associations to non-musical real-world events. However, it is suggested – on the basis of the speaker’s recently developed Aesthetic Trinity Theory and its initial empirical tests – that being moved and aesthetic awe, often accompanied by thrills (chills), may be the most genuine and profound music-related emotional states.