Study Shows Music Emotions are Universal
By Morelli
A study shows that happy, sad and fearful emotions in music are universally recognizable. Members of the Mafa, a native African ethnic group in Cameroon, were able to detect the three emotions in Western music without ever having listened to it, as published recently in Current Biology. Thomas Fritz, of the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, says that:
“These findings could explain why Western music has been so successful in global music distribution, even in music cultures that do not as strongly emphasize the role of emotional expression in their music.”
The researchers also found that both Western listeners and African listeners find original music more pleasant than altered versions, which can explained by the way manipulated songs are more dissonant.
Since both Mafa and Western listeners were able to recognize, above chance level, the three emotional expressions tested, researchers conclude that “these emotional expressions conveyed by the Western musical excerpts can be universally recognized, similar to the largely universal recognition of human emotional facial expression and emotional prosody.”
Music can link different culture’s emotions, and perhaps not only certain traits of music are universal, but also human emotion itself. Maybe music, in this case, has demonstrated how alike we all are.
Photo via pro.corbis.com
Source: ScienceDaily
