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