Music psychology can shed light on non-psychological aspects of musicology and musical practice. For example, it contributes to music theory through investigations of the perception and computational modelling of musical structures such as melody, harmony, tonality, rhythm, meter, and form. Research in music history can benefit from systematic study of the history of musical syntax,
or from psychological analyses of composers and compositions in
relation to perceptual, affective, and social responses to their music.
History
Early history (pre-1860)
The study of sound and musical phenomenon prior to the 19th century was focused primarily on the mathematical modelling of pitch and tone. The earliest recorded experiments date from the 6th century BCE, most notably in the work of Pythagoras and his establishment of the simple string length ratios that formed the consonances of the octave. This view that sound and music could be understood from a purely physical standpoint was echoed by such theorists as Anaxagoras and Boethius. An important early dissenter was Aristoxenus,
who foreshadowed modern music psychology in his view that music could
only be understood through human perception and its relation to human
memory. Despite his views, the majority of musical education through the
Middle Ages and Renaissance remained rooted in the Pythagorean tradition, particularly through the quadrivium of astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and music.
Research by Vincenzo Galilei (father of Galileo)
demonstrated that, when string length was held constant, varying its
tension, thickness, or composition could alter perceived pitch. From
this he argued that simple ratios were not enough to account for musical
phenomenon and that a perceptual approach was necessary. He also
claimed that the differences between various tuning systems were not
perceivable, thus the disputes were unnecessary.
Study of topics including vibration, consonance, the harmonic series, and resonance were furthered through the scientific revolution, including work by Galileo, Kepler, Mersenne, and Descartes. This included further speculation concerning the nature of the sense organs and higher-order processes, particularly by Savart, Helmholtz, and Koenig.
Rise of empirical (1860–1960)
A brass, spherical Helmholtz resonator based on his original design, circa 1890-1900.
The latter 19th century saw the development of modern music psychology alongside the emergence of a general empirical psychology, one which passed through similar stages of development. The first was structuralist psychology, led by Wilhelm Wundt,
which sought to break down experience into its smallest definable
parts. This expanded upon previous centuries of acoustic study, and
included Helmholtz developing the resonator to isolate and understand pure and complex tones and their perception, the philosopher Carl Stumpf using church organs and his own musical experience to explore timbre and absolute pitch, and Wundt himself associating the experience of rhythm with kinesthetic tension and relaxation.
As structuralism gave way to Gestalt psychology and behaviorism
at the turn of the century, music psychology moved beyond the study of
isolated tones and elements to the perception of their
inter-relationships and human reactions to them, though work languished
behind that of visual perception.
In Europe Géza Révész and Albert Wellek developed a more complex
understanding of musical pitch, and in the US the focus shifted to that
of music education and the training and development of musical skill. Carl Seashore led this work, producing his The Measurement of Musical Talents and The Psychology of Musical Talent.
Seashore used bespoke equipment and standardized tests to measure how
performance deviated from indicated markings and how musical aptitude
differed between students.
In 1963 F. Chrysler was the first one to used the term " science
of music" when he was working on his "year book for musical" knowledge.
European musicology was found in Greek. They were focus on the
philosophy, and the concepts of any relations with music. Greek's
several theories rose later on to Arab and the Christians Theories.
Although their theories survived, they were also corrupted along the
way, in the Middle Ages of Europe.
Modern (1960–present)
Music
psychology in the second half of the 20th century has expanded to cover
a wide array of theoretical and applied areas. From the 1960s the field
grew along with cognitive science,
including such research areas as music perception (particularly of
pitch, rhythm, harmony, and melody), musical development and aptitude,
music performance, and affective responses to music.
This period has also seen the founding of music
psychology-specific journals, societies, conferences, research groups,
centers, and degrees, a trend that has brought research toward specific
applications for music education, performance, and therapy. While the techniques of cognitive psychology allowed for more objective examinations of musical behavior and experience, the theoretical and technological advancements of neuroscience have greatly shaped the direction of music psychology into the 21st century.
While the majority of music psychology research has focused on music in a Western context, the field has expanded along with ethnomusicology to examine how the perception and practice of music differs between cultures. It has also emerged into the public sphere. In recent years several bestselling popular science books have helped bring the field into public discussion, notably Daniel Levitin's This Is Your Brain On Music (2006) and The World in Six Songs (2008), Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia (2007), and Gary Marcus' Guitar Zero (2012). In addition, the controversial "Mozart effect" sparked lengthy debate among researchers, educators, politicians, and the public regarding the relationship between classical music listening, education, and intelligence.
Research areas
Perception and cognition
Much work within music psychology seeks to understand the cognitive processes that support musical behaviors, including perception, comprehension, memory, attention, and performance. Originally arising in fields of psychoacoustics and sensation, cognitive theories of how people understand music more recently encompass neuroscience, cognitive science, music theory, music therapy, computer science, psychology, philosophy, and linguistics.
Affective response
Music has been shown to consistently elicit emotional responses in its listeners, and this relationship between human affect and music has been studied in depth.
This includes isolating which specific features of a musical work or
performance convey or elicit certain reactions, the nature of the
reactions themselves, and how characteristics of the listener may
determine which emotions are felt. The field draws upon and has significant implications for such areas as philosophy, musicology, and aesthetics, as well the acts of musical composition and performance.
The implications for casual listeners are also great; research has
shown that the pleasurable feelings associated with emotional music are
the result of dopamine release in the striatum—the same anatomical areas that underpin the anticipatory and rewarding aspects of drug addiction.
Neuropsychology
A significant amount of research concerns brain-based mechanisms
involved in the cognitive processes underlying music perception and
performance. These behaviours include music listening, performing,
composing, reading, writing, and ancillary activities. It also is
increasingly concerned with the brain basis for musical aesthetics and
musical emotion. Scientists working in this field may have training in
cognitive neuroscience, neurology, neuroanatomy, psychology, music
theory, computer science, and other allied fields, and use such
techniques as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), magnetoencephalography (MEG), electroencephalography (EEG), and positron emission tomography (PET).
The cognitive process
of performing music requires the interaction of neural mechanisms in
both motor and auditory systems. Since every action expressed in a
performance produces a sound that influences subsequent expression, this
leads to impressive sensorimotor interplay.
Processing pitch
The primary auditory cortex is one of the main areas associated with superior pitch resolution.
Perceived pitch typically depends on the fundamental frequency, though the dependence could be mediated solely by the presence of harmonics
corresponding to that fundamental frequency. The perception of a pitch
without the corresponding fundamental frequency in the physical stimulus
is called the pitch of the missing fundamental.
Neurons lateral to A1 in marmoset monkeys were found to be sensitive
specifically to the fundamental frequency of a complex tone, suggesting that pitch constancy may be enabled by such a neural mechanism.
Pitch constancy refers to the ability to perceive pitch identity
across changes in acoustical properties, such as loudness, temporal
envelope, or timbre.
The importance of cortical regions lateral to A1 for pitch coding is
also supported by studies of human cortical lesions and functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain.
These data suggest a hierarchical system for pitch processing, with
more abstract properties of sound stimulus processed further along the
processing pathways.
Absolute pitch
Absolute pitch (AP) is defined as the ability to identify the pitch
of a musical tone or to produce a musical tone at a given pitch without
the use of an external reference pitch. Researchers estimate the occurrence of AP to be 1 in 10,000 people. The extent to which this ability is innate or learned is debated, with evidence for both a genetic basis and for a "critical period" in which the ability can be learned, especially in conjunction with early musical training.
Processing rhythm
Behavioural studies demonstrate that rhythm and pitch can be perceived separately, but that they also interact
in creating a musical perception. Studies of auditory rhythm
discrimination and reproduction in patients with brain injury have
linked these functions to the auditory regions of the temporal lobe, but have shown no consistent localization or lateralization.
Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies have shown that the motor
regions of the brain contribute to both perception and production of
rhythms.
Even in studies where subjects only listen to rhythms, the basal ganglia, cerebellum, dorsal premotor cortex (dPMC) and supplementary motor area (SMA) are often implicated. The analysis of rhythm may depend on interactions between the auditory and motor systems.
Neural correlates of musical training
Although
auditory–motor interactions can be observed in people without formal
musical training, musicians are an excellent population to study because
of their long-established and rich associations between auditory and
motor systems. Musicians have been shown to have anatomical adaptations
that correlate with their training.
Some neuroimaging studies have observed that musicians show lower
levels of activity in motor regions than non-musicians during the
performance of simple motor tasks, which may suggest a more efficient
pattern of neural recruitment.
Motor imagery
Previous
neuroimaging studies have consistently reported activity in the SMA and
premotor areas, as well as in auditory cortices, when non-musicians
imagine hearing musical excerpts.
Recruitment of the SMA and premotor areas is also reported when musicians are asked to imagine performing.
Deutsch's scale illusion: an auditory illusion
in which two scales are presented with successive tones alternating
between each ear but are perceived as simultaneous, unbroken scales.
Psychoacoustics
Psychoacoustics is the scientific study of sound perception. More specifically, it is the branch of science studying the psychological and physiological responses associated with sound (including speech and music). Topics of study include perception of the pitch, timbre, loudness and duration of musical sounds and the relevance of such studies for music cognition or the perceived structure of music; and auditory illusions and how humans localize sound, which can have relevance for musical composition and the design of venues for music performance. Psychoacoustics is a branch of psychophysics.
Cognitive musicology
Cognitive musicology is a branch of cognitive science concerned with computationally modeling musical knowledge with the goal of understanding both music and cognition.
Cognitive musicology can be differentiated from the fields of music cognition and cognitive neuroscience of music by a difference in methodological emphasis. Cognitive musicology uses computer modeling to study music-related knowledge representation and has roots in artificial intelligence and cognitive science. The use of computer models provides an exacting, interactive medium in which to formulate and test theories.
This interdisciplinary field investigates topics such as the
parallels between language and music in the brain. Biologically inspired
models of computation are often included in research, such as neural
networks and evolutionary programs.
This field seeks to model how musical knowledge is represented, stored,
perceived, performed, and generated. By using a well-structured
computer environment, the systematic structures of these cognitive
phenomena can be investigated.
Evolutionary musicology
Evolutionary musicology concerns the "origins of music, the question
of animal song, selection pressures underlying music evolution", and
"music evolution and human evolution". It seeks to understand music perception and activity in the context of evolutionary theory. Charles Darwin speculated that music may have held an adaptive advantage and functioned as a protolanguage, a view which has spawned several competing theories of music evolution. An alternate view sees music as a by-product of linguistic evolution; a type of "auditory cheesecake" that pleases the senses without providing any adaptive function. This view has been directly countered by numerous music researchers.
Cultural differences
An individual's culture or ethnicity plays a role in their music cognition, including their preferences, emotional reaction, and musical memory.
Musical preferences are biased toward culturally familiar musical
traditions beginning in infancy, and adults' classification of the
emotion of a musical piece depends on both culturally specific and
universal structural features.
Additionally, individuals' musical memory abilities are greater for
culturally familiar music than for culturally unfamiliar music.
Applied research areas
Many areas of music psychology research focus on the application of
music in everyday life as well as the practices and experiences of the
amateur and professional musician. Each topic may utilize knowledge and
techniques derived from one or more of the areas described above. Such
areas include:
Music in society
Including:
- everyday music listening
- musical rituals and gatherings (e.g. religious, festive, sporting, political, etc.)
- the role of music in forming personal and group identities
- the relation between music and dancing
- social influences on musical preference (peers, family, experts, social background, etc.)
Musical preference
Consumers' choices in music have been studied as they relate to the Big Five personality traits: openness to experience, agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness.
In general, the plasticity traits (openness to experience and
extraversion) affect music preference more than the stability traits
(agreeableness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness).
Gender has been shown to influence preference, with men choosing music
for primarily cognitive reasons and women for emotional reasons. Relationships with music preference have also been found with mood and nostalgic association.
Background music
The study of background music
focuses on the impact of music with non-musical tasks, including
changes in behavior in the presence of different types, settings, or
styles of music. In laboratory settings, music can affect performance on cognitive tasks (memory, attention, and comprehension), both positively and negatively. Used extensively as an advertising aid, music may also affect marketing strategies, ad comprehension, and consumer choices. Background music can influence learning, working memory and recall, performance while working on tests, and attention in cognitive monitoring tasks. Background music can also be used as a way to relieve boredom, create positive moods, and maintain a private space. Background music has been shown to put a restless mind at ease by presenting the listener with various melodies and tones.
Music in marketing
In both radio and television advertisements, music plays an integral role in content recall, intentions to buy the product, and attitudes toward the advertisement and brand itself. Music's effect on marketing has been studied in radio ads, TV ads, and physical retail settings.
One of the most important aspects of an advertisement's music is
the "musical fit", or the degree of congruity between cues in the ad and
song content.
Advertisements and music can be congruous or incongruous for both
lyrical and instrumental music. The timbre, tempo, lyrics, genre, mood,
as well as any positive or negative associations elicited by certain
music should fit the nature of the advertisement and product.
Music and productivity
Several studies have recognized that listening to music while working affects the productivity of people performing complex cognitive tasks. One study suggested that listening to one’s preferred genre of music can enhance productivity in the workplace, though other research has found that listening to music while working can be a source of distraction, with loudness and lyrical content possibly playing a role.
Other factors proposed to affect the relationship between music
listening and productivity include musical structure, task complexity,
and degree of control over the choice and use of music.
Music education
A primary focus of music psychology research concerns how best to teach music and the effects this has on childhood development.
Including:
- optimizing music education
- development of musical behaviors and abilities throughout the lifespan
- the specific skills and processes involved in learning a musical instrument or singing
- activities and practices within a music school
- individual versus group learning of a musical instrument
- the effects of musical education on intelligence
- optimizing practice
Musical aptitude
Musical
aptitude refers to a person's innate ability to acquire skills and
knowledge required for musical activity, and may influence the speed at
which learning can take place and the level that may be achieved. Study
in this area focuses on whether aptitude can be broken into subsets or
represented as a single construct, whether aptitude can be measured
prior to significant achievement, whether high aptitude can predict
achievement, to what extent aptitude is inherited, and what implications
questions of aptitude have on educational principles.
It is an issue closely related to that of intelligence and IQ, and was pioneered by the work of Carl Seashore. While early tests of aptitude, such as Seashore's The Measurement of Musical Talent,
sought to measure innate musical talent through discrimination tests of
pitch, interval, rhythm, consonance, memory, etc., later research found
these approaches to have little predictive power and to be influenced
greatly by the test-taker's mood, motivation, confidence, fatigue, and
boredom when taking the test.
Music performance
Including:
- the physiology of performance
- music reading and sight-reading, including eye movement
- performing from memory and music-related memory
- acts of improvisation and composition
- flow experiences
- the interpersonal/social aspects of group performance
- music performance quality evaluation by an audience or evaluator(s) (e.g. audition or competition), including:
- influence of musical and non-musical factors
- the audience's positive evaluation shift as a result of an audio-visual presentation mode
- audio engineering
In 1997 Karageorhis, Costas and Terry, Peter C. did a review over the effects of music in sports.
They found out that music, energies people to do more exercise.
They also found out that you accomplish more in your exercise than
without music.
Music and health
Including:
- the effectiveness of music in healthcare and therapeutic settings
- music-specific disorders
- musicians' physical and mental health and well-being
- music performance anxiety (MPA, or stage fright)
- motivation, burnout, and depression among musicians
- noise-induced hearing loss among musicians
Journals
Music psychology journals include:
- Music Perception
- Musicae Scientiae
- Psychology of Music
- Psychomusicology: Music, Mind and Brain
- Music and Science
- Jahrbuch Musikpsychologie
Music psychologists also publish in a wide range of mainstream musicology, computational musicology,
music theory/analysis, psychology, music education, music therapy,
music medicine, and systematic musicology journals. The latter include
for example:
- Computer Music Journal
- Empirical Musicology Review
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Journal of New Music Research
- Journal of Mathematics and Music
- Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
- Research Studies in Music Education
Societies
- Asia-Pacific Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (APSCOM)
- Australian Music & Psychology Society (AMPS)
- Deutsche Gesellschaft für Musikpsychologie (DGM)
- European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM)
- Japanese Society for Music Perception and Cognition (JSMPC)
- Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research (SEMPRE, Britain)
- Society for Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC)
