Musical Preferences as a Function of Stimulus Complexity and Listeners' Sophistication

Two groups of college students, 20 with fewer than two years of musical training and 20 with extensive musical backgrounds, rated their preferences for piano recordings of J. S. Bach's “Prelude and Fugue in C Major,” Claude Debussy's “The Maid With the Flaxen Hair,” Edvard Grieg's “Wedding Day at Troldhaugen,” and Pierre Boulez's “Piano Sonata No. 1, 2nd Movement.” Each piece had been ranked according to perceived complexity by seven music professors. When personal preference was plotted against complexity, an inverted-U curve was obtained. These data corroborate the 1874 position of Wilhelm Wundt and others. Average liking was significantly higher among musically sophisticated subjects, due primarily to differences between their ratings and those of the nonsophisticated subjects for the pieces by Debussy and Boulez. This suggests that musical sophistication might increase preference, particularly for modern pieces in which complexity is greatest.