Theory of science

Reflection on Theory of Science

 

              There’s not only one method to acquire scientific knowledge. According to Proctor and Capaldi (2001) there are different scientific methods to get scientific knowledge. Different periods in history correspond to different scientific methods used. Science develops and advances through time. My readings helped me understand that concepts like deduction and induction can lead us sometimes to bias that could be avoided. For instance, in Juslin et al. (2008) results showed that different situations tended to evoke different musical emotions. Emotions such as calm-contentment, nostalgia-longing, and sadness-melancholy arisen frequently in “lonely” backgrounds. However, because this study involved only 32 students, it’s not possible to induct that all persons listening to sad, calm and nostalgic music are in fact alone, even if it the tendency says that it is like that. This reflection leads me to think about Popper’s approach known as falsifiability where hypotheses should be followed by attempts to falsify them. In other words, the findings should not be interpreted as “the truth”, but the truth according to the external and internal circumstances and the studied population or sample. In some way I would agree with Feyerabend (1975) approach. He argued that there is no such thing as the method of science. According to him, science has many methods.

Looking a bit more deeply into my field of research, there’s a few examples on how different methodologies can give raise to different perspectives in the same field. Also, the framework that is behind the researcher itself will influence his own procedures, directions and methods. Although this can be considered strange to most lay people, it’s because of these different approaches that science advances and makes its own way. Looking at the music and emotion field, Kivy, a firm cognitivist, has repeatedly denied that music really arouses what he has termed the "garden varieties" or real-world instances of sadness, happiness, anger, and other simple emotions in the listener, while the emotivists, which constitute the major group, objectively believe music does arouse these emotions. In fact the observation of a phenomenon’s is always different according to their mentors.

This section of the course made me reflect also in the humanist ideal, in how science and humanism sometimes are not working together. Looking for instance on how different corners of world have different access to knowledge, information and technology, makes me think that what we’re creating is more scientific than humanistic. Knowledge today is also a transactional item, and unfortunately only some people in the world will benefit from it.

After reflecting in some aspects of theory of science and concealing it with music and emotion, and the affective sciences in general, I think that more and more different perspectives need to talk and reflect more together. Neuroscience, neurobiology, musicology, sociology, philosophy and other perspectives should not be regarded with distrust, but as other sources of knowledge that could be analyzed, incorporated and even assimilated in some cases by psychology researchers. They explain the connection between music and emotion in very distinct and sometimes peculiar ways. These disciplines in the last few years started cooperating between each other, in order to find better answers to difficult questions. Although a common consensus is not easy to get. Philosophical investigations, for instance, lead to suggestion of new empirical questions, and sciences like psychology can take advantage of these new questions.

Most theorists accept that only sentient creatures can express emotions, they defend that humans give expressiveness to the music, and that listeners look for the composer or the “persona” symbolized in the music. Expression theory and arousal theory and counter theory are examples of expressiveness theories.

Musicologists like Meyer draws his music emotion theory based in psychology sources, and the principles of Gestalt. Music sets up expectations in the listener, frequently after postponement. According to his theory, the longer resolution is delayed, the more affect will be created. However, several philosophers see limitations in Meyer’s theory. First, it’s claimed that the relationship between emotions as “normally understood” and Meyer’s indistinct affect or feeling note is not acceptable. Second, they consider Meyer’s approach too narrow and exclusive.

Basic emotions are today also the main focus of neuropsychological studies. Young children can easily find emotion meaning from music. By the age of 9 months, they can distinguish happy and sad music, by the age of 3 years, they already have the ability to recognize happiness in art of their culture and by the age of 6 years, children show abilities to identify sadness, fear and anger in music, like adults do. By the age of 6, western children understand of the rules under the happy-sad character of the music of their culture, which is remarkable.

The current trend in music sociology is to focus on how music may be used to construct self-identity and to create and maintain a variety of feelings state and also the procedures and practical activities in particular social contexts, with a focus on emotions in terms of how they are experienced within social situations. In DeNora’s (2000) study that deals with how American and British women use music, nearly all women spoke explicitly about the role of music in their lives. According to them it’s a mean to create, enhance, sustain and change cognitive, bodily and self-conceptual states. Music is chosen not only because it calms them, but because it restores in some cases its own identity, connected to memories and associations. New sociologists of musical practice and emotional work recognize the importance of music related to emotions.

Even though disciplines like philosophy, musicology, anthropology and sociology lacked most times empirical evidence, it’s also true that psychology found the bases of understanding the relation between music and emotion in these fields. It’s important to stress the close relation between psychology and neurobiology on the last decade. I believe that these two different fields although with different scopes, will support each other findings in the near future.

The need of revising the existing methods and the need of new ones is one of the most frequent themes of reflection among researchers. Techniques to distinguish answers related to perceived and felt emotions are also essential. Despite the fact that some interview guidelines have been used, there is still no universal for handling this problem. In my next two studies I propose myself the use of methods that are not so common in the field of emotions; however I believe that they can shed some light in some of the problems discussed above.  In the first study I propose the use of an internet based methodology, in order to get data from different corners of the world. It is known that today most studies only regard a particular sample of western culture in order to explain music and emotion findings. I think that even though this method can lower the internal validity of the study, it will surely increase the external validity in its ecological validity for instance. The other study concerns the connection of emotions and wellbeing, little work has been done concerning wellbeing and emotional states while listening to music.

I think that the more ecological validity we get, the more close to a humanist position we are, and that is a challenge that I’m willing to face.

Goncalo Barradas

Goncalo.Barradas@psyk.uu.se

 

Application paper

Psychological Mechanisms and Emotions Evoked by Music:

Activating Emotional Contagion, Brain Stem Response and Episodic Memory

 

Gonçalo Barradas

Introduction

A growing number of researchers in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and musicology have shown an interest in the relationship between music and emotion. Studies by Schubert (1999), Gabrielsson and Lindstrom (2001), Gabrielsson and Juslin (2003), and Juslin and Laukka (2003) allowed for the association of musical features with different emotion dimensions. A complete list was presented by Livingstone and Brown (2005). When questioning which emotions are most often induced when we hear music, answers were provided in studies by Juslin and Laukka (2004) and Sloboda (1992), and more recently in a study by Zentner et al. (2008). Juslin, Liljestrom, Vastfjall, Barradas, and Silva (2008) also confirmed the presence of musical emotions in everyday life.

However, according to Juslin and Vastfjall (2008), there has been a certain neglect with regard to the mechanisms that underlie the induction of emotion in music. This neglect is based on a lack of studies that address the issues: How does music evoke emotions? How is it possible to isolate and study each mechanism alone? In this research plan, I suggest three experimental studies that could be tested within Juslin and Vastfjall’s (2008a) framework. My research would try to overcome limitations of the research done so far. With my project, I propose to isolate and study the emotional contagion, brain stem response and episodic memory mechanisms, which represented the three most self-reported causes of musical emotions episodes according to Juslin et al. (2008). I will study each of these mechanisms in order to find if these can explain, and how, most emotions induced by music in everydaylife.

Another goal of my studies is to reduce some of the disagreements in this domain. It’s crucial, for example, to explain and demonstrate that emotions music can induce can depend on the mechanism implicated. Can these mechanisms be activated at the same time? This is another fundamental issue that I will try to answer and study. Since differente factors in the music can activate differente mechanisms, it’s also true that these mechanisms are expected to draw a parallel with different types of music, listener environment, mood, and expression. In accordance with Table 4 in Juslin and Vastfall (2008), I hypothesize that the three mechanisms in this study can be activated independently, since all three focus on different sorts of information and involve different brain areas.

Each mechanism will be studied deeply, in order to produce consistent and clear results. Music manipulation will try to distinguish each mechanism and explain their brain activation patterns as well. Another issue still unsolved among researchers is whether musical emotions are similar or not to emotions in everyday life (Swanwick 1985). I hypothesize that my studies will find no significant differences. Several studies already found that music evokes mainly the same emotions as other sources (Gabrielsson 2001; Juslin & Laukka 2004).

The studies would be conducted in controlled laboratory settings, featuring self-report and psychophysiological measurement, in order to take better conclusions about causal relations. I hypothesize that field studies and experimental studies combined will give us a better basis and explanation of the induction of emotions process, while combining the interactions of each mechanism with another. Some mechanisms such as episodic memory will only be captured and better analyzed if we sample a wide variety of situations, which is only possible with field studies. On the other hand, brain stem responses will be better verified in laboratory.

 

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Conclusion

The planned studies would be relevant for researchers who look for better methods to analyse music and emotion and their underlying mechanisms. The characteristics of each mechanism presented in the BRECVEM theoretical framework need further laboratory experiments. It is crucial for the development of a set of diagnostic questions that can help researchers to determine which mechanism caused a particular emotion in a self-report context. This new framework can contribute to the resolution of many disagreements in the field, particularly about which emotions music can induce, how early they develop, time of induction, type of causal process, etc.

 

I expect that my results will show that all three mechanisms play crucial roles in the induction of musical emotions and that the mechanisms recruited by music are mostly the same as other stimuli that induce emotions. I also expect to be able to isolate each of the mechanisms. The manipulation of underlying mechanisms in a systematic manner is a crucial goal to achieve. If musical emotions are evoked through such mechanisms, is this also true to non-musical emotions? I expect to find in my results that most of non-musical emotional are evoked using quite the same mechanisms as musical emotions. Musical structures are easy to manipulate, and this advantage needs further exploration. It’s important to note that the understanding of these mechanisms can also contribute in many ways to other applications, such as music therapy. I think this methodology could offer a promising tool for emotion research in relation to music, as well as the study of emotions in general.