Most theorists of emotion believe that emotional responses are caused by cognitive appraisals and that the objects of these appraisals are the “intentional objects” of the corresponding emotions. Since “pure” instrumental music without words cannot normally specify the requisite object, it is widely believed that music can arouse only moods rather than emotions proper (Carroll Reference Carroll2003). Juslin & Västfjäll (J&V) have usefully pointed out that emotions too can be evoked by non-cognitive means. On the other hand, such emotions, although responses to information in the music, are not directed towards the music as a “cognitive object” but are simply caused by it as a “stimulus object” (Kivy Reference Kivy1990).
1 “Brain stem reflexes” are caused by “sounds that are sudden, loud, dissonant, [etc.]” (sect. 3.1.1, para 1). These responses are “preattentive” (sect. 3.1.1, para. 4), very fast, and automatic, like the startle mechanism (Robinson Reference Robinson1995). In a sense, they “appraise” the situation – as one that needs to be attended to – but the music is not the intentional object of the emotion; the emotion is not about the music.
2 “Evaluative conditioning” also achieves its effects without being about the music. In LeDoux's (Reference LeDoux1996) experiments with rats, fear is elicited by the conditioned stimulus (CS), which is a tone. The thalamo-amygdala route in the brain identified by LeDoux conveys only very crude information about the stimulus; the response is caused by, without being directed at, the tone.
3 In discussing “emotional contagion” (Hatfield et al. Reference Hatfield, Cacioppo and Rapson1994), J&V focus on the way that internal mimicry of vocal expressions of emotions such as sadness may induce the emotion mimicked. A more powerful and widespread mechanism would seem to be the internal and external mimicry of bodily movements and action tendencies characteristic of particular emotions (Bharucha et al. Reference Bharucha, Curtis and Paroo2006; Nussbaum Reference Nussbaum2007; Robinson Reference Robinson2005). Sad music moves in a slow, lethargic way, as sad people tend to do, and if the music induces mimicry of such movements, it may be able to induce sadness itself. There is a wealth of evidence that inducing people to adopt a facial expression, bodily stance, or action tendency characteristic of some emotion induces the emotion itself (Laird Reference Laird2007; Strack et al. Reference Strack, Martin and Stepper1998). Again, there is no intentional object involved. Of course, the feeling of emotion induced may be categorized or labeled after the fact with an emotion term (Schachter Reference Schachter1959), and an intentional object may then be confabulated for the emotion (Robinson Reference Robinson2005).
4 In contrast to these three mechanisms, which typically operate beneath awareness, emotions deriving from “musical expectancies” are the result of focusing consciously on the way the music unfolds and appraising it as either meeting or failing to meet one's expectations (Meyer Reference Meyer1956; Sloboda & Juslin Reference Sloboda, Juslin, Juslin and Sloboda2001). When the listener is surprised by a move away from the tonic, bewildered when the music moves into key areas ever more distant from the tonic, and delighted when the tonic at last returns, these musical developments are the intentional objects of the emotions aroused. Indeed, they are not only the object of focused attention but also of some sort of appraisal, such as “this is unexpected or expected.”
5 Emotions aroused by “episodic memories” also have an intentional object towards which the emotion is directed, but in this case the primary object of the emotion is not the music itself but the remembered episode. The music arouses emotion only through association with the episode.
6 “Visual imagery” also evokes emotions, which are then associated with the music. When the music leads me to picture a tranquil landscape, say, it is hard to know whether it is the imagined landscape or the music itself that is having the emotional effect. Things are also complicated by the fact that sometimes the visual imagery we form in listening is guided by the music (as in successful Guided Imagery and Music [GIM] therapy), whereas at other times it may be little more than free association with the music. I start to listen to L'après-midi d'un faune (The Afternoon of a Faun), and I imagine relaxing on the warm sand by the sea, and then I start to think about my last vacation in the south of France, and before I know it I am no longer paying attention to the music but simply wool-gathering (Kivy Reference Kivy2007). Any experiments designed to study the imagery that music encourages and perhaps guides and manages has to be able to rule out this kind of free association. One other point: Music does not induce only visual imaginings. Much instrumental music of the Romantic period encourages more abstract imaginings, such as Beethoven's Fifth, which enacts the drama of a struggle leading to victory (Newcomb Reference Newcomb1984).
Despite all their evidence, J&V have not ruled out the possibility that some of the mechanisms discussed may arouse moods rather than emotions. The data in their Table 3 demonstrating various psychomotor, motivational, cognitive, and behavioral effects of music are consistent with the hypothesis that it is moods that are being induced rather than simply emotions. That is because the primary function of moods is precisely to “bias cognition” (Davidson Reference Davidson, Ekman and Davidson1994). Moods are “biases and modulations in the operation of processes such as attention allocation, memory retrieval, and categorization” (Sizer Reference Sizer2000), as well as emotion (Ekman Reference Ekman, Ekman and Davidson1994; Frijda Reference Frijda, Lewis and Haviland1993). In an irritable mood one has a propensity to become angry, for example. And, of course, the absence of an intentional object suggests that the emotional contagion mechanism, for example, could be arousing a mood rather than an emotion proper.
It seems likely that some types of music are more likely to produce moods than emotions. Mood music in a horror movie is designed to induce a mood of suspense rather than any specific emotion: The music induces a propensity to get into an emotional state of fear or excitement, and it affects how we attend to the film (we are on the look-out for sinister events). By contrast, Beethoven's Fifth is designed to elicit emotions that are attendant on the musical structure, including the expressive structure of the piece. Different kinds of music are designed for different modes of listening. The formalist music-appreciator listening to Beethoven focuses on musical syntax – melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic – and the emotions aroused by “musical expectancies” may well be a mode of understanding the piece itself. But for the horror-movie aficionado getting in the right mood for the story about to unfold or the teenager listening to rap in order to reinforce his sense of membership in the “in” group, the details of the musical structure are more-or-less irrelevant (Kivy Reference Kivy2007).
