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6.8
Conclusion
In this chapter, we attempted to give an overview of the current knowledge in the
topic of music and emotion from an interdisciplinary perspective. At the present
state, the area of music and emotion has grown and became an important
field of
research with implications for a number of disciplines. Despite the progress
achieved, several issues still remain open and need to be further explored. In what
follows, a few of the main issues in the area, which deserves particular attention for
future research, will be brie
y described.
The underlying mechanisms through which music evokes emotions is one of the
main issues that remain unresolved. Better understanding of the mechanisms
underlying music emotion induction has important implications on both theoretical
research in the
field as well as on applications including multimedia, health care,
and music therapy. Recently, a novel theoretical model of music-induced emotions
was proposed (see Sect.
6.2
). Further theoretical and experimental studies are
needed to test the mechanisms featured in the model. First, the characteristics of
each mechanism should be speci
ed to allow distinguishing among different
mechanisms. Second, well-controlled experiments should be designed to test the
proposed mechanisms. The proposed framework allows the induction of mixed
emotions when two or more mechanisms are activated simultaneously. Thus,
stimuli are needed able not only to activate a certain mechanism but at the same
time to isolate the effect of others. To this end, sophisticated acoustical techniques
can be used which allows the manipulation of certain acoustic features, while living
other intact. A different approach could be to design experiments in such a way to
prevent the information processing required for a particular mechanism to be
activated. For that purpose, new techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimu-
lation (TMS) could be employed to disrupt brain activity at certain brain areas. This
would prevent the activation of these brain areas by music stimuli.
Another issue is the temporal aspect of musical emotion. Music evolves in time,
and therefore, emotional responses change in the course of time. There is need to
explore the temporal dynamics of music-induced emotions in long pieces of music
(a symphony, for example) during the course of which one may experience different
emotions. To capture the temporal dynamics of musical emotions, continuous
measurements are needed. Most of the studies on music-induced emotions use self-
report measures. Self-reports, however, provide ratings for short music excerpts
after a stimulus has been heard. On the other hand, physiological measures are by
their nature temporal and therefore more ef
cient in capturing the temporal
dynamics of music and of music-induced emotions. The use of continuous mea-
sures is more demanding concerning both the quantity and the complexity of the
recorded data. Therefore, extra effort and more complicated techniques of pro-
cessing and analysis of long time series should be used.
In addition to the above issues, the ef
cient coupling of psychological predic-
tions with physiological and neuroimaging techniques is important. Most of the
neuroimaging and physiological studies of music and emotion look for simple,
