In the second condition, the excerpts lasted one second.
The results showed that one second of music was enough to induce an emotional experience,
and that there was no difference between the responses of musicians and non-musicians. The au-
thors suggest that performance cues are enough to induce emotions in western listeners, even if
they merely hear the first tone of a piece. A second study confirmed that excerpts as short as 250
msec may be enough to induce feelings of emotion in listeners (p. 434). The authors argue that the
emotional response is not merely subcortical, but requires a cognitive appraisal mediated by the cor-
tex. In their review of literature, they point out the importance of kinematics and energy for musical
expression, as proposed by De Poli et al.^12
Strong experiences of music
Grewe et al. (NM II no. 49, pp. 446-449) have investigated strong experiences of music that can
arouse ”chills” defined as ”goose pimples” or ”shivers down the spine”. They invited a heteroge-
nous group to the experiment, comprising 5 professional musicians, 20 amateur musicians, and 13
non-musicians, in order to avoid bias due to social background and education. Every subject listened
to seven entire pieces from different styles: Mozart, Bach, Pop music, Film music, Cello-Rockband,
Death Metal, and Bossa Nova,^13 plus 5-10 personally selected pieces known to induce strong emo-
tions. The experimenters asked the subjects to press a mouse button whenever they experienced
a chill while listening to music. This permitted identification of the musical events that had triggered
chills. Skin conductance response was also measured.
The authors observed that chill experiences are individual, and that strong emotional response
to music is related to structural musical elements. Important musical factors seem to be change in
loudness, harmonic sequences, the entrance of a voice, and the beginning of a new part (p. 448).
The authors hypothesize that the strong response is not a subcortical reflex, but a result of attentive,
experienced, and conscious musical enjoyment. The subsequent publication by Grewe et al. (2007)
presents a complete report of the experiment.
3.2.2. Critical comments stated at the conference NM II 2002
In comparison with NM I, critical comments were scarce. Diego Minciacchi (NM II, pp. 346-348)
noted that the studies of music performance were still in their pioneering stage. Isabelle Peretz and
John Sloboda (NM II, pp. 409-411) noted the lack of ecological validity in studies of musical emotion,
stating that ”studies of the musical brain must generally take place in highly controlled and somewhat
culturally impoverished environments, limiting the generality of their findings” (p. 410). They pointed
out that no studies had explored emotional responses in complete musical works, and that emotional
responses to music were specific to the listening situation.
3.2.3. Achievements and problems of research in NM II 2005
In NM I 2002, the critical comments pointed out five types of problems:
- Low ecological validity.
- Cultural bias, giving preference to Western tonal music.
- Neglect of aesthetic and social factors.
- Possible overestimation of the localization of brain functions.
- The limitations of experimental techniques.
12 De Poli et al. (NM I no. 9 pp. 118-123), this chapter.
13 The pieces are specified in Grewe et al. (2007:777).