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Appraisal theory has been criticized to have little relation to music-evoked emotions
because most reactions to music do not involve implications of life goals (Juslin
et al.
2010
). In a recent study, listeners were asked to indicate what might have
caused their emotion by choosing among different proposed mechanisms (Juslin
et al.
2008
). The above study investigated different mechanisms evoking musical
emotions in daily life. The results show that cognitive appraisal was the least
important.
Emotions are often considered as a multi-componential phenomenon including
physiological, behavioral, subjective, expressive, and cognitive components related
to different organismic subsystems. It is argued (Scherer and Zentner
2001
) that the
most salient criterion for an emotion event is the degree of synchronization of all
organismic subsystems involved through rhythmic entrainment. If music can
in
uence one of the components, peripheral mechanisms can be triggered to cause
spread to other emotions components. Rhythmic entrainment is the process where
an emotion is induced by a piece of music because the powerful external rhythm of
music interacts and synchronizes to an internal biological rhythm of the listener
such as heart rate or respiration. The synchronized heart rate may then spread to
other emotional components through proprioceptive feedback, causing increased
arousal (Juslin and Sloboda
2010
). Existing research suggests that coupling of
internal biological oscillators (heart rate, respiration) and external stimuli exists
(Boiten et al.
1994
). Such coupling could provide an explanation of emotion-
inducing effect of music. Rhythmic entrainment, however, has not been so far
systematically investigated with respect to musical emotion. In order to answer the
question of whether music induces emotion, all pertinent indicators in the respective
organismic subsystems need to be accurately measured and the degree of their
synchronization assessed using reliable mathematical techniques. Recent research
provides some evidence that the mechanism of rhythm entrainment causes
increased arousal during visual stimulation (Valenza et al.
2012
).
6.3.2 The BRECVEM Model
Research on the possible mechanisms for music emotion induction was mainly
limited on one or a few mechanisms (Berlyne
1971
; Meyer
1956
; Scherer and
Zentner
2001
). There was no attempt, however, to develop a general framework
including several induction mechanisms. Recently, a novel theoretical framework for
music-induced emotions was proposed (Juslin and V
ll
2008
; Juslin et al.
2010
).
This framework was based on both existing research (Berlyne
1971
; Meyer
1956
)as
well as on recent research (Juslin et al.
2008
). It is suggested that seven physiological
mechanisms are involved in the induction of musical emotions, in addition to cog-
nitive appraisal: (1) brain stem re
ä
stfj
ä
ex, (2) rhythmic entrainment (3) evaluative con-
ditioning, (4) emotional contagion, (5) visual imagery, (6) episodic memory, and (7)
musical expectancy.
