Musical experiences are culturally shaped
Researchers from TU Berlin, McGill University and the Université de Montréal have conducted experiments with pygmies to investigate whether emotional reactions to music are universally the same worldwide. The results are rather sobering.
In an experiment, a group of isolated Mbenzélé Pygmies in Congo, who had never before had any contact with Western music and culture, and a group of Canadians were each played the music of the Pygmies and Western music. The Canadian test subjects, on the other hand, were completely unfamiliar with Pygmy music.
The test subjects' physiological parameters of skin conductance, heart rate and respiratory rate were measured. At the same time, each test subject was asked to assess the subjective emotional effect the music had on them. In a computer-based diagram, the listeners used a smartphone to indicate whether the piece of music played made them feel positive or negative and whether the music had a calming or arousing/stimulating effect.
While the Pygmies always experienced the music from their culture as positive and arousing, no similarities could be observed in the reactions of Western listeners to this music. In contrast, the music excerpts that had an arousing effect on the Western listeners also led to an increase in the subjective level of arousal among the Pygmies.
The analysis of the data suggests that the subjective emotional impact of music is more culture-specific, i.e. influenced by the cultural significance of the music that people grew up with. Whether a piece of music is subjectively perceived as happy or sad, solemn or romantic is an individual matter, the researchers write. The universality of music seems to relate more to the parameters of arousal and calming, which could be proven on the basis of the measured physiological parameters.
Original article: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01341
