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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Stupacher, Jan
(2024).
Investigating internal motor simulation in response to music stimuli with varying degrees of rhythmic complexity.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina; Treider, John Melvin Gudnyson & Huron, David
(2024).
The attribution of virtual agency to music predicts liking.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2024).
Some of our favourite songs make us sad, which may be why we like them.
[Internet].
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2426284-some-of-our-fav.
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Swarbrick, Dana; Danielsen, Anne; Jensenius, Alexander Refsum & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2023).
The Effects of “Feeling Moved” and “Groove” On Standstill.
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Swarbrick, Dana & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2023).
Exploring the Relationship Between Experiences of Awe, Being Moved, and Social Connectedness in Concert Audiences.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Swarbrick, Dana
(2023).
Moving together: Exploring the relationship between emotions, connectedness, and motion in concert audiences.
Show summary
Music is able to evoke experiences of being moved and a sense of social connectedness in audiences – even in the context of streamed concerts and recorded music. The present study set out to investigate audiences’ emotional experiences and amount of movement in a classical string quartet concert, which was attend by both a live (N=91) and a livestreaming (N=45) audience. The results revealed that both audiences felt similarly connected to the performers, while the live audience felt more connected to other audience members than the livestreaming audience. Reports of ‘being moved’ and awe were influenced more by the piece of music than by the listening context, and the live audience demonstrated distinct motion patterns in response to different musical pieces. The amount of audience movement was also associated with the degree of connectedness experienced towards other audience members. In a follow-up online experiment, 189 participants continuously rated their experience of being moved while watching a recording of the Beethoven string quartet performance from the main concert experiment. Cross-correlations between the continuous ratings and musical features and audience movement patterns were analysed. Overall, the findings demonstrate that the degree of connectedness experienced towards other audience members is modulated by shared presence as well as the amount of audience movement, while experiences of ‘feeling moved’ and awe are influenced by the music itself.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Peltola, Henna-Riikka
(2023).
Who hates (some) music, and why? Explaining individual differences in the intensity of music-induced aversion.
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Ranjan, Snehal; Hari, Kancharla Aditya; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Alluri, Vinoo
(2023).
Sad songs say so much: Analyzing moving music shared online.
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Grüning, David J.; Kaemmerer, Mareike & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2023).
Being Moved by Sad Music Across Countries: Characterising the Experience in Finland, Germany, and France.
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Gibbs, Hannah & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2023).
The effects of synchronised drumming and trait empathy on perspective taking and social bonding.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Peltola, Henna-Riikka
(2023).
Who hates (some) music, and why? Explaining individual differences in the intensity of music-induced aversion.
Show summary
Aversive or disliked music has the capacity to evoke strong negative emotions and physical sensations – at least in some listeners. Although previous (qualitative) studies on aversive and disliked music have provided valuable insights into listeners’ experiences, more generalizable approaches are needed for understanding individual differences in strong aversion to disliked music. This study set out to explore these individual differences by developing a standardised questionnaire to measure the intensity of aversive musical experiences; The Aversive Musical Experience Scale (AMES). Furthermore, we explored potential predictors and hypothesized underlying mechanisms (such as emotional contagion and a general sensitivity to sounds) by measuring trait emotional contagion, misophonia, proneness to experiences of ASMR and frisson, and personality. Based on the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, a final 18-item version of AMES was constructed. The global AMES comprises three subscales: Sensations, Social and Features. The Sensations subscale taps into the physical sensations, bodily reactions and feelings associated with aversive musical experiences. The Social subscale comprises items related to social relationships and attitudes in the context of aversive music. Finally, the Features subscale taps into specific musical and acoustic features that participants find aversive. Misophonia emerged as the strongest predictor of global AMES and its three subscales, explaining 9-19 % (adj. R2 change) of the inter-individual variance. Emotional contagion also emerged as a significant predictor, accounting for 2-4 % of the variance in AMES and two of its subscales. Furthermore, the personality traits Neuroticism, Ageeableness, and Openness to experience, as well as age and musical training, emerged as significant predictors of at least one of the scales. The implications and limitations of the findings are discussed with respect to sound-sensitivity, music-induced emotions, and personality theory.
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Swarbrick, Dana; Bosnyak, Dan; Marsh Rollo, Susan; Fu, Nicole; Trainor, Laurel & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2023).
Being in Concert: The Effects of Audience Participation on Motion, Emotion, and Connectedness.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2023).
Music and the experience of social connection.
Show summary
Musical engagement – ranging from group music-making to solitary music listening – is an inherently social activity that can facilitate communication, understanding, and connection between individuals and groups. The three studies presented in this talk shed light on the social dimension of musical experiences, focusing on the listener’s perspective. The first study explores the characteristics of virtual concerts and their impact on social connection and felt emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second study compares live and livestreamed concerts and their effects on motion, emotion, the experiences of social connectedness. Finally, the third study investigates experiences of feeling moved in response to music listening, and shows that musically evoked experiences of feeling moved are associated with similar patterns of appraisals, physiological sensations, and empathic processes as feeling moved by videos depicting social scenarios. Together, these studies highlight the importance of social connection and empathy in musical experiences, demonstrating that music can serve as a powerful tool for promoting social bonding and experiences of connectedness.
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Fu, Nicole; Bosnyak, Dan; Marsh Rollo, Susan; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina; Trainor, Laurel & Swarbrick, Dana
(2022).
Being in Concert: The effects of audience participation on engagement, kama muta, and connectedness.
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Akca, Merve; Bishop, Laura; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Laeng, Bruno
(2022).
Tracing the Temporal Limits of Auditory Information Processing with Pupillometry.
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Swarbrick, Dana & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2022).
Collectively Classical: Social Connectedness at a Classical Concert.
Show summary
Submission:
Motivation:
Concerts are fundamentally social experiences in which an audience and musicians gather to witness and create an aesthetic experience. Live concerts are important sociocultural events that normally involve gathering at the same time and in the same space. In livestreamed virtual concerts, participants may gather in time, but not in space, providing a natural manipulation for studying concert experiences. Our previous research indicated that livestreamed virtual concerts can promote more social connectedness than pre-recorded virtual concerts. Additionally, live concerts promote more movement than listening to recorded music in a group. However, to the best of our knowledge, a comparison between live and virtual concerts and their effects on motion and emotion has not yet been conducted.
Methodology:
The Danish String Quartet is an acclaimed classical music group who performed a concert to both live and livestreaming audiences. Audience members were invited to participate by downloading a smartphone application that records motion with their own smartphones’ inertial measurement unit sensors. Survey responses were collected information on their experience of the music, social connectedness, and the sociorelational emotion of feeling moved before the concert and after each piece.
Results:
Survey responses were collected from 91 participants in the live audience and 67 participants in the livestreaming audience. Motion data was collected from 79 participants in the live audience and 34 from the livestreaming audience. While analyses are ongoing, preliminary results of the questionnaire data revealed that although the live audience felt more connected to other audience members than the virtual audience, both live and virtual audience members felt equally connected to the performers.
Implications:
This research contributes to the field of embodied music cognition by reinforcing the importance of the social nature of musical experiences.
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Swarbrick, Dana & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2022).
Collectively Classical: Social connection at a classical concert.
Show summary
Background:
Concerts are fundamentally social experiences in which an audience and musicians gather to witness and create an aesthetic experience, together. Concerts and the music featured there may facilitate connectedness and the sociorelational emotion kama muta (frequently labelled “feeling moved”) through a variety of mechanisms. Kama muta is considered a self-transcendent emotion as is awe (Yaden et al., 2017). Recent research suggests that in virtual concerts, both concert characteristics (e.g. liveness, technological platform) and individual characteristics (e.g. empathy, loneliness, concentration) influence feelings and behaviours associated with social connectedness (Swarbrick et al., 2021; Onderdijk, Swarbrick et al., 2021). Social bonding during collective music listening has previously been demonstrated in the context of dance (Tarr et al., 2016).
Aims: In a live concert experiment, we aimed to examine how concert and personal characteristics influence social connectedness, kama muta, and awe at a live concert and how the effects of live and virtual concerts differ.
Methods:
MusicLab Copenhagen was a concert experiment in which the Danish String Quartet performed to a live (n = 91) and a livestreaming audience (n = 67). Participants listened to three distinct pieces of music and responded to a questionnaire that captured their personal characteristics and their social and emotional concert experience. Specifically, participants reported feelings of social connectedness that they felt towards the performers and the other audience members, and they responded to the kama muta scale (Zickfeld et al., 2019) and to a selection of items from the awe experience scale (Yaden et al., 2019).
Results:
The live audience members felt more connected to other audience members than the virtual audience members, but both live and virtual audience members felt equally connected to the performers. The live and virtual audiences felt similar levels of kama muta and awe. However while the pieces of music showed similar effects on both social connectedness and kama muta, the pieces had an opposite effect on awe.
Conclusions:
Even though live concerts facilitate more togetherness among audience members than livestreamed concerts, livestreaming and virtual audience members experience similar levels of connectedness towards the performers, kama muta, and awe. This indicates that virtual concerts may still be useful tools for performers to strengthen their bonds with their fans.
Implications:
This research will help us to continue to uncover the benefits of concert attendance on audiences. Furthermore, this research contributes to a burgeoning field comparing the effects of live and virtual experiences and the implications of their differences on our social well-being.
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Swarbrick, Dana & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2022).
Collectively Classical: Social connection at a classical concert.
Show summary
We aimed to examine the difference between live and livestreamed concerts, the influence of musical piece, and participant characteristics such as empathy and fan-status on audience social connectedness and feeling moved.
Concerts are fundamentally social experiences in which an audience and musicians gather to witness and create an aesthetic experience. Concerts and the music featured there may facilitate connectedness and the sociorelational emotion kama muta (frequently labelled “feeling moved”) through a variety of mechanisms. Recent research suggests that in virtual concerts, both concert characteristics (e.g. liveness, technological platform) and individual characteristics (e.g. empathy, loneliness, concentration) influence feelings and behaviours associated with social connectedness (Swarbrick et al., 2021; Onderdijk, Swarbrick et al., 2021). Social bonding during collective music listening has previously been demonstrated in the context of dance (Tarr et al., 2016). Questions remain on how concert and personal characteristics influence social connectedness at a live concert and how the effects of live and virtual concerts differ.
MusicLab Copenhagen was a concert experiment in which the Danish String Quartet performed to a live (n = 91) and a livestreaming audience (n = 45). Participants responded to questions on their personal characteristics and their social and emotional concert experiences using a questionnaire in response to three distinct pieces of music. Specifically, participants reported feelings of social connectedness that they felt towards the performers and the other audience members, and they responded to the kama muta scale.
Although the live audience members felt more socially connected to other audience members than the virtual audience members, both live and virtual audience members felt similarly connected to the performers. There was also a main effect of the piece of music for both social connectedness and feeling moved such that these outcome measures were highest for the folk, then Beethoven, and then Schnittke. When examining awe, the main effect of piece was also present however with awe presenting an opposite trend, with Schnittke producing the highest levels of awe followed by Beethoven and then folk. This research has helped us understand the experience of live and virtual classical concert audiences. Furthermore, this research contributes to a burgeoning field comparing the effects of live and virtual experiences and the implications of their differences on our social well-being.
Interdisciplinary implications. The MusicLab Copenhagen project was an interdisciplinary collaboration between psychologists, technologists, musicians, and philosophers. This project offered meaningful perspectives on the challenges and advantages of conducting research on such an interdisciplinary team. The MusicLab Copenhagen model could be employed by future research teams to get the most out of a concert experiment. In this particular study, we combine disciplinary expertise in social psychology and music cognition to better understand participants’ social experience of concerts.
References
Swarbrick, D., Seibt, B., Grinspun, N., and Vuoskoski, J. K. (2021). Corona Concerts: The Effect of Virtual Concert Characteristics on Social Connection and Kama Muta. Front. Psychol. 12, 1–21. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648448.
Onderdijk, K. E., Swarbrick, D., Van Kerrebroeck, B., Mantei, M., Vuoskoski, J. K., Maes, P. J., et al. (2021). Livestream Experiments: The Role of COVID-19, Agency, Presence, and Social Context in Facilitating Social Connectedness. Front. Psychol. 12, 1–25. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647929.
Tarr, B., Launay, J., and Dunbar, R. I. M. (2016). Silent disco: dancing in synchrony leads to elevated pain thresholds and social closeness. Evol. Hum. Behav. 37, 343–349. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2016.02.004.
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Swarbrick, Dana; Upham, Finn; Erdem, Cagri; Jensenius, Alexander Refsum & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2022).
Measuring Virtual Audiences with The MusicLab App: Proof of Concept.
Show summary
We present a proof of concept by using the mobile application MusicLab to measure motion during a livestreamed concert and examining its relation to musical features. With the MusicLab App, participants’ own smartphones’ inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors can be leveraged to record their motion and their subjective experiences collected through survey responses. The MusicLab Lock-down Rave was an Algorave (live-coded dance music) livestreamed concert featuring prolific performers Renick Bell and Khoparzi. They livestreamed for an international audience who wore their smartphones with the MusicLab App while they listened/danced to the performances. From their acceleration, we computed quantity of motion and compared it to musical features that have previously been associated with music-related motion, namely pulse clarity and low and high spectral flux. By encountering challenges and implementing improvements, the MusicLab App has become a useful tool for researching music-related motion.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2022).
Empathy, Entrainment and Social Bonding.
Show summary
Music is an inherently social phenomenon. Even when we listen to music in solitude, social cognitive and affective processes play an important role in shaping our perception and experience. In my own work, I have explored how empathy in particular facilitates and modulates our engagement with music. Through recent empirical studies, I will demonstrate how empathy contributes to both affective attunement and bodily entrainment to music. Furthermore, I will argue that trait empathy may also facilitate the social bonding effects of musical engagement, whether in the context music listening or interpersonal synchrony. Finally, I will also discuss how feelings of being moved by music could be understood through a ‘social lens’ as experiences and appraisals of connectedness.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2021).
The social dimension of music cognition.
Show summary
Music is an inherently social phenomenon. Even when we listen to music in solitude, social cognitive processes play an important role in shaping our perception and experience. Building on recent empirical evidence, I will argue that the social dimension of music cognition may be even more important than previously recognized. Through empirical examples, I will demonstrate how listeners make social evaluations on the basis of musical information, how feeling moved by music is associated with appraisals and experiences of connectedness, and how empathy contributes to embodiment of both emotional and rhythmic aspects of music.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2021).
Who enjoys listening to sad music and why?
Show summary
Why do people sometimes enjoy listening to music that makes them sad? The paradox of “pleasurable sadness” has attracted significant research interest in recent years, but important pieces of the puzzle are still missing. Crucially, not everyone enjoys listening to sad music, and the individual differences between those who enjoy sad music and those don’t can be the key to solving the puzzle. I will present empirical evidence from my recent work involving self-report, psychophysiological and hormonal measures, and discuss the theoretical implications of these findings.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2021).
From compassion to being moved: Social emotions evoked by music.
Show summary
Musical engagement involves and fosters a number of processes that are associated with empathy, such as emotional contagion, entrainment, and social bonding. One example of such a process is the feeling of ‘being moved’ – a powerful, rewarding experience often accompanied by chills, tears, and a sense of connection. In the past few years, ‘being moved’ has attracted increasing research interest as a distinct emotional response with prosocial functions and motivations – also in the context of the arts (e.g., Wassiliwizky et al., 2015; Eerola et al., 2016). Building on empirical evidence from my recent work, I will argue that experiences of ‘being moved’ in the context of music listening are inherently social responses. I will demonstrate that feelings of being moved are closely related to empathic personality traits and feelings of compassion, and they mediate the enjoyment of music-induced sadness. I will also argue that feeling moved by music is associated with appraisals or experiences of closeness or affiliation.
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Dalgard, Joachim; Lartillot, Olivier; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Guldbrandsen, Erling Eliseus
(2021).
Absorption - Somewhere between the heart and the brain.
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Subramanian, Sidhant; Mittal, Anant; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Alluri, Vinoo
(2021).
Music or Lyrics? Individual differences associated with listening strategies.
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Gram-Nilsen, Elias & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2021).
The influence of the moving image on musical emotions.
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Swarbrick, Dana; Grinspun, Noemi; Seibt, Beate & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2020).
Food & Paper: Virtually Together: Concerts during the Coronavirus.
Show summary
Government responses to the coronavirus led to unprecedented social distancing measures across the world. These measures were challenging for many; however, musicians adapted quickly by providing online virtual concerts. Anecdotally, viewers commented that virtual concerts made them feel socially connected despite the restrictions and the technologically mediated interactions. Little research has previously examined engagement at virtual concerts (Pursiainen, 2016), and to the best of our knowledge, no research has specifically examined which aspects of virtual concerts promote feelings of togetherness and being moved. We aimed to examine what aspects of the virtual concert experience and participant characteristics 1) make people feel socially connected and 2) make people feel moved. This research addresses the topical question of how people can feel socially connected in a time of social distancing. Both performing artists and societies can benefit from what this study might reveal about the online concert experience.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2020).
Vad lyssnar folk på i Borgå, Karis och Jakobstad?
[Internet].
https://svenska.yle.fi/artikel/2020/12/04/vad-lyssnar-folk-p.
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Swarbrick, Dana; Seibt, Beate; Grinspun, Noemi & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2020).
Virtually together: Concerts during the coronavirus.
Show summary
Government responses to the coronavirus led to unprecedented social distancing measures across the world. These measures were challenging for many; however, musicians adapted quickly by providing online virtual concerts. Anecdotally, viewers commented that virtual concerts made them feel socially connected despite the restrictions and the technologically mediated interactions. Little research has previously examined engagement at virtual concerts (Pursiainen, 2016), and to the best of our knowledge, no research has specifically examined which aspects of virtual concerts promote feelings of togetherness and being moved. We aimed to examine what aspects of the virtual concert experience and participant characteristics 1) make people feel socially connected and 2) make people feel moved. Participants watched at least 15 minutes of an online concert and reported information on the concert characteristics, emotional and social outcomes, and their demographics, motivations, listening technologies, and musical experience. The main outcomes are the Kama Muta Scale (Zickfeld et al., 2019) which measures feeling moved, and the social connectedness between the participant and the other attendees and performers. Mediation analyses will examine what aspects led to increased connectedness and feeling moved. 310 participants from 14 countries across the Americas (n = 212), Europe (n = 84), and Asia (n = 12) completed the survey. On average, participants reported on a 5-point scale that they felt moderately connected to the performer (M = 3.7), less connected to other audience members (M =2.3), and moderate feelings of being moved or touched (M = 3.7). Further mediation analyses will aim to understand what concert aspects led to these feelings. This research addresses the topical question of how people can feel socially connected in a time of social distancing. Both performing artists and societies can benefit from what this study might reveal about the online concert experience.
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Swarbrick, Dana; Seibt, Beate; Grinspun, Noemi & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2020).
Virtually Together: Concerts during the Coronavirus.
Show summary
Background
Government responses to the coronavirus led to unprecedented social distancing measures across the world. These measures were challenging for many; however, musicians adapted quickly by providing online virtual concerts. Anecdotally, viewers commented that virtual concerts made them feel socially connected despite the restrictions and the technologically mediated interactions. Little research has previously examined engagement at virtual concerts (Pursiainen, 2016), and to the best of our knowledge, no research has specifically examined which aspects of virtual concerts promote feelings of togetherness and being moved.
Aims
We aimed to examine what aspects of the virtual concert experience and participant characteristics 1) make people feel socially connected and 2) make people feel moved.
Method
Participants watched at least 15 minutes of an online concert and reported information on the concert characteristics, emotional and social outcomes, and their demographics, motivations, listening technologies, and musical experience. The main outcomes are the Kama Muta Scale (Zickfeld et al., 2019) which measures feeling moved, and the social connectedness between the participant and the other attendees and performers. Mediation analyses will examine what aspects led to increased connectedness and feeling moved.
Results
310 participants from 14 countries across the Americas (n = 212), Europe (n = 84), and Asia (n = 12) completed the survey. On average, participants reported on a 5-point scale that they felt moderately connected to the performer (M = 3.7), less connected to other audience members (M =2.3), and moderate feelings of being moved or touched (M = 3.7). Further mediation analyses will aim to understand what concert aspects led to these feelings.
Conclusions
This research addresses the topical question of how people can feel socially connected in a time of social distancing. Both performing artists and societies can benefit from what this study might reveal about the online concert experience.
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Swarbrick, Dana; Grinspun, Noemi; Seibt, Beate & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2020).
Quarantine Concerts.
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Eerola, Tuomas & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2020).
Personality and listeners,
The Science and Psychology of Music: From Beethoven at the Office to Beyoncé at the Gym.
ABC-CLIO.
ISSN 978-1-4408-5771-3.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Eerola, Tuomas
(2020).
Personality and musicians,
The Science and Psychology of Music: From Beethoven at the Office to Beyoncé at the Gym.
ABC-CLIO.
ISSN 978-1-4408-5771-3.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Heid, Markham
(2019).
Why Listening to Sad Music Makes You Feel Better.
[Internet].
https://elemental.medium.com/why-listening-to-sad-music-make.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2019).
Parallels between the cognition of rhythm in sports and music.
Show summary
Although rhythm is often discussed in purely auditory terms, mounting evidence from the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience suggests that rhythm is fundamentally a domain-general phenomenon grounded in motor action. By drawing parallels between music and rowing – a sport characterized by repetitive rhythmic patterns and synchronized joint action – I illustrate how biological motion principles underlie the parameters of rhythm in both disciplines, and how interpersonal synchronization relies on shared timing models, multisensory cues, and predictive processes. Furthermore, I will demonstrate how conceptual and theoretical tools developed in the context of musical rhythm – such as non-isochronous meter (i.e., a cyclic pattern of beats with unequal durations) – can contribute to conceptualizing and understanding rhythm cognition in the context of rowing as well. Finally, I will discuss how accurate sensorimotor synchronization can facilitate experiences of ‘flow’ in both disciplines – especially in the face of increasing rhythmic complexity.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2019).
Accounting for inter-individual variance in perceived and felt emotions.
Show summary
The emotional meanings conveyed by music do not exist in a vacuum, but emerge from the interaction between the music, the listener, and the context/situation. In addition to cross-cultural variability in musical forms and the emotional connotations associated with them, there is also significant inter-individual variability within cultures with regard to emotional responding. In this talk, I will present empirical evidence from two studies that demonstrate the extent of inter-individual variability – in terms of both perceived and felt emotion – in Finnish listeners.
Study 1 explored the contribution of Big Five personality traits and current mood to individual differences in emotions perceived in music. Sixty-seven participants listened to 50 short film music excerpts, and rated their perceived emotions using five discrete emotion scales (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and tenderness). Both personality traits and mood states were significantly correlated with biases in emotion perception, but partial correlations and moderated multiple regression analyses revealed that current mood accounted for most of the inter-individual variance in ratings of perceived emotion.
Study 2 investigated individual differences in emotional reactivity to music at the level of both self-reports and physiological responses. Furthermore, the role of trait empathy in these individual differences was explored. Fifty-four participants heard 10 1-minute music excerpts representing five different emotions (sad, happy, scary, tender, and neutral). Participants rated their liking and the overall intensity of their emotional response, and described their felt emotion using 7 rating scales. In addition, participants’ electrodermal activity and heart rate variability were measured. Correlation analyses revealed that trait empathy was associated with the intensity of emotional responses both at the level of self-report and physiological responses. Furthermore, the patterns of correlations were consistent across both levels.
The implications of the findings will be discussed in terms of the benefits of investigating individual differences and measuring multiple components of emotion.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Bjurström, Eelis
(2019).
Hautaa ystäväsi – Me kuuntelemme kuolemaa ja surkeutta romantisoivia kappaleita ymmärtämättä, että ne voivat vahingoittaa meitä syvästi.
[Internet].
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-10875178.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Eerola, Tuomas
(2019).
Trait empathy contributes to the intensity of music-induced emotions: Evidence from self-reports and psychophysiology.
Show summary
It has been postulated that empathy and emotional contagion might be some of the fundamental mechanisms through which music induces emotional responses in listeners. Previous studies have reported correlations between questionnaire measures of trait empathy and self-reported intensity of music-induced emotion (particularly in response to sad and tender music), but it is not yet known whether this association only exists at the level of self-report. us, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between trait empathy and psychophysiological indices of music-induced emotion. Fi y-four participants heard 10 1-minute music excerpts representing ve di erent emotions (sad, happy, scary, tender, and neutral). For each excerpt, participants rated their liking and the overall intensity of their emotional response, and described their felt emotion using 7 rating scales (happy, tender, peaceful, moved, anxious, and energetic). In addition, participants’ electrodermal activity and heart rate variability (HRV) were measured. Trait empathy was measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980). Trait empathy correlated signi cantly with the mean ratings of overall intensity of felt emotion (averaged across all excerpts; r = .29). Trait empathy also correlated with phasic skin conductance activity in response to sad (r = .28) and tender (r = .33) excerpts, and with high- frequency HRV in response to happy excerpts (r = .36; all p < .05). ese results corroborate previous ndings that have associated trait empathy with the self-reported intensity of music-induced emotions, and provide novel evidence of a similar pattern also on the level of psychophysiology.
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Thompson, Marc Richard & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2019).
Everything but the sound: Investigating the relationships between
movement features and perceptual ratings of silent music performances.
Show summary
In musical performance, the gestures and mannerisms of a musician can have a profound impact on the observer’s experience of the music. In this presentation, we investigate to what degree this holds true when presenting participants silent videos of abstracted movement (stick figure animations derived from motion capture data). [P] A pianist and violinist individually performed four pieces (composed to express sadness, happiness, threat, and peacefulness; Vieillard et al., 2008), each with four different emotional expressions: sad, happy, angry and deadpan. The 32 performances were tracked using optical motion capture. Subsequently, participants (piano group: n = 31; violin group: n = 34) viewed the performances as stick-figure animations and provided ratings of perceived happiness, anger, sadness, and tenderness for each performance. [P] From the 3D motion capture data for each performance, we computed variables based on the movements of the head, torso, shoulders, arms and hands. We computed the average velocity, acceleration and jerk of each direction (x, y, z) as well as the norm of the vectors. We compared these features with the averaged perceptual ratings. [P] Correlation analyses revealed that participants were likely to rate a performer’s intention high on happiness and anger when the movements were high in activity (e.g. quick movements, many changes in directions), while the performances were rated high on sadness and tenderness when the movement were low in activity. For both the pianist and the violinist, no single part of the body stood out as correlating more highly with the perceptual ratings than others. [P] The results support past research that the communication of emotional intentions in a musical performance is possible even when viewing the performances without sound and in an abstracted setting. They also indicate that the visual aspects of a performance are experienced as a single gestalt (as opposed to paying attention to individual parts of the body).
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Thompson, Marc Richard
(2019).
The contribution of visual and auditory cues to the perception of emotion in musical performance.
Show summary
In musical performance, emotional expression emerges from the interplay between the structural features of the music (i.e., the composition) and the expressive efforts of the performer. Previous research has shown that the body movements and gestures of the performer constitute an important source of expressive information, successfully communicating different expressive intentions to audiences. However, it is still un- known whether visual kinematic information about performers’ movements could also modulate perceived emotions. [P] This study aimed to investigate the relative contributions of auditory and visual cues to the communication of emotion in musical performance. A pianist and a violinist performed four short musical passages (composed to express sadness, happiness, threat, and peacefulness; Vieillard et al., 2008), each with four different emotional expressions: sad, happy, angry, and deadpan. The musicians’ movements were tracked using optical motion capture. [P] A total of 90 participants took part in three perceptual experiments, where they rated perceived emotions using four scales. There were four rating conditions: audio-only, video-only (with point-light animations generated from motion capture data), audiovisual, and time-warped audiovisual. In the time-warped condition, motion capture animations from all four expressive conditions were combined and synchronized with the audio of the deadpan performances. [P] Repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed that participants could accurately recognize emotional expressive intentions based on vi- sual information alone. In the audio-only condition, Type of Composition (mean effect size = .40; generalized eta- squared; Bakeman, 2005) accounted for more variance than Expressive Intention (mean effect size = .17) in participants’ emotion ratings. In the audiovisual condition, the difference between mean effect sizes was reduced (Type of Composition = .36; Expressive Intention = .20), indicating that visual kinematic infor- mation enhanced the perceptual salience of expressive intentions. The time-warped audiovisual condition (where animations with different expressive intentions were paired with deadpan audio) also revealed that visual information could modulate perceived emotions.
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Huron, David & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2019).
On the enjoyment of sad music: Pleasurable compassion theory and the role of trait empathy.
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Why do people enjoy listening to nominally sad music? In the first instance, only about half the population reports enjoying sad music (Garrido & Schubert, 2011; Taruffi & Koelsch, 2014). Such individual variability suggests that either culture, experience, and/or personal trait factors play a decisive role in the seemingly paradoxical phenomenon of sad-music enjoyment. Recent experiments implicate trait empathy. Specifically, those listeners who most enjoy sad music typically score high on ”empathetic concern” (or compassion), with nominal ”personal distress” (or commiseration) (Eerola, et al., 2016; Kawakami & Katahira, 2015; Sattmann & Parncutt, 2018; Vuoskoski & Eerola, 2017). That is, when encountering sadness-related stimuli, sad- music lovers are more likely to experience pity or compassion rather than an emotional contagion of evoked sadness or commiseration. The authors review literature implicating compassion as a positively valenced affect. Neuroimagining studies show that altruistic thoughts alone are sufficient to activate regions of the medial forebrain pleasure circuit (Harbaugh, Mayr & Burghart, 2007; Izuma, Saito, & Sadato, 2008). Since compassion is a precursor affect intended to motivate altruistic behaviors, compassion must also be pos- itively valenced. In this regard, the pleasure of compassion conforms to classic research on dopamine function, where over time, dopamine rewards shift from consummatory behaviors to anticipatory behaviors (Berridge & Robinson, 1998; Gebauer, et al., 2012; Weiss, et al., 1993). Overall, Pleasurable Compassion Theory suggests that sad-music lovers experience only moderate levels of “I feel your pain” but high levels of “I feel sympathy for you.” If compassion is a positively valenced affect, then high levels of sympathy, pity, or compassion will produce a broadly pleasurable experience. Finally, Pleasureable Compassion Theory is shown to avoid a number of classic pitfalls identified by aesthetic philosophers when accounting for the paradox of negative emotions in the arts (e.g., Levison, 2013).
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2019).
Sound Field (producer: PBS Digital Studios), Episode 2: Why Does Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” Sound So Sad?
[Internet].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHipCeYasYY.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2019).
Being moved by music: A prosocial emotional response?
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Musical engagement (music-making, listening and dancing) involves and fosters a number of processes that are associated with empathy, such as emotional contagion, embodied resonance, entrainment, and social bonding. One example of such a process is the feeling of ‘being moved’ – a powerful, rewarding experience often accompanied by chills, tears, and a sense of connection. In the past few years, ‘being moved’ has attracted increasing research interest as a distinct emotional response with prosocial functions and motivations – also in the context of the arts (e.g., Wassiliwizky et al., 2015; Eerola et al., 2016). ‘Being moved’ is typically characterized as a mixed or predominantly positive emotion, with joy and sadness as its main ingredients. In the context of music listening, feelings of being moved are closely related to empathic personality traits, and have been found to mediate the enjoyment of sad music (Vuoskoski & Eerola, 2017). Building on empirical evidence from my recent work, I will argue that the experiences of ‘being moved’ in the context of music listening are inherently social responses with prosocial motivations and functions.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina; Zickfeld, Janis Heinrich; Alluri, Vinoo & Seibt, Beate
(2018).
Moved by music: Investigating continuous ratings and contributing musical features.
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In the past few years, the emotion commonly labelled ‘being moved’ has attracted increasing research interest in the context of the arts (e.g., Wassiliwizky et al., 2015; Eerola et al., 2016). ‘Being moved’ is typically characterized as a mixed or predominantly positive emotion, with joy and sadness as its main ingredients. In the context of music listening, feelings of being moved have been found to mediate the enjoyment of sad music (Vuoskoski & Eerola, 2017). However, little is known about the time course of such experiences.
The aim of the present study was to investigate continuously rated experiences of ‘being moved’ in response to music, and how these experiences relate to perceived sadness, happiness, and beauty. 415 participants took part in a pre-registered online experiment where they heard 7 moving music excerpts (3 sad, 3 happy, and 1 neutral; duration 121-186 s) and continuously rated their experience or perception (1 scale per participant per excerpt). Before analyses, the continuous rating data was averaged (within each song), de-trended, and downsampled.
Perceived beauty cross-correlated highly with being moved across all excerpts (CCF0 = .59). Being moved correlated with perceived happiness in both joyfully (CCF0 = .66) and sadly (CCF0 = .52) moving excerpts, but with perceived sadness only in the sadly moving excerpts (CCF0 = .48). An exploratory analysis of computationally extracted musical features revealed partly excerpt-dependent patterns of correlations, but RMS energy and spectral entropy – reflecting changes in loudness and broadness of the frequency range – significantly correlated with being moved across most pieces.
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Mittal, Anant; Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina & Alluri, Vinoo
(2018).
Personality, trait empathy, and kinds of musical reward predict healthy and unhealthy music listening strategies.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina; Clarke, Eric F. & Elvers, Paul
(2018).
Comparing the effects of music and images on implicit cultural attitudes.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2018).
Moved by music: The role of empathy and social cognition in music-induced emotions (keynote lecture).
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2018).
Moved by music: The role of empathy in music-induced emotions.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2018).
The role of empathy in music-induced emotion.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2017).
The role of empathy in music-induced emotions.
Show summary
Music is imbued with connotations of human emotional expression on multiple levels. Although it is likely that music utilises multiple different psychological mechanisms in the induction of emotional responses, one compelling account suggests that we might sometimes respond to music as we would to the observed experiences of another person — with empathy. In this talk, I will introduce the basic premise and outline the evidence for this account, and present recent findings from my own empirical work.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2017).
Music, rowing, and the aesthetics of rhythm.
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Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2017).
How does music move us? The psychology of music and emotion.
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Zelechowska, Agata; Jensenius, Alexander Refsum; Laeng, Bruno & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina
(2020).
Irresistible Movement: The Role of Musical Sound, Individual Differences and Listening Context in Movement Responses to Music.
Universitetet i Oslo.
Full text in Research Archive