Relationship of Musical Preference to Collative, Ecological, and Psychophysical Variables

Two experiments were conducted in order to test predictions derived from Berlyne9s theory of aesthetic preference. According to the theory, preference is an inverted-U function of arousal potential; the determinants of arousal potential are summed, with the consequence that an increase in the amount of one determinant leads to a decrease in the maximally preferred level of other determinants; and collative properties, such as dissonance, are the most important predictors of preference. The experiments supported none of these predictions. Preference tended to be related to its determinants by monotonic or U-shaped functions. The predicted trade-off among the determinants of preference was not clearly present. Semantic factors rather than collative properties were the most important determinants of preference. In Experiment 1, uncertainty was related to preference in an inverted-U manner, but it was shown that this may be an artifact of a U-shaped relationship between preference and melodic typicality. In Experiment 2, it was found that subject-rated meaningfulness is highly related to preference for melodies, whereas subjectively perceived complexity is essentially unrelated to preference. The results are explained in terms of a cognitive theory of aesthetic preference.

[1]  Frank H. Farley,et al.  The Foundations of Aesthetics, Art, and Art Education , 1988 .

[2]  The Aesthetic Experience and Mundane Reality , 1984 .

[3]  R. Francès.  La perception de la musique , 1958 .

[4]  J. Bharucha.  Music Cognition and Perceptual Facilitation: A Connectionist Framework , 1987 .

[5]  W. Wundt,et al.  Grundzüge der physiologischen psyhcologie , 1893 .

[6]  Leah L. Light,et al.  Why Attractive People are Harder to Remember , 1981 .

[7]  C. Martindale,et al.  Aesthetic preference: Anomalous findings for Berlyne's psychobiological theory. , 1990 .

[8]  C. Martindale,et al.  Priming, prototypicality, and preference. , 1988 .

[9]  D Birnbaum,et al.  Psychological reality of cross-media artistic styles. , 1983, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[10]  D. Berlyne,et al.  Arousal and Reinforcement , 1967 .

[11]  D. Laird,et al.  PSYCHOLOGICAL MEASUREMENTS OF ANNOYANCE AS RELATED TO PITCH AND LOUDNESS , 1929 .

[12]  Loren Steck,et al.  Preference for Musical Complexity: Effects of Context. , 1975 .

[13]  T. Whitfield,et al.  The effects of categorization and prototypicality on aesthetic choice in a furniture selection task. , 1979 .

[14]  Colin Martindale,et al.  The pleasures of thought: A theory of cognitive hedonics. , 1984 .

[15]  R. Stennett,et al.  The relationship of performance level to level of arousal. , 1957, Journal of experimental psychology.

[16]  Earl A. Alluisi,et al.  Studies in the New Experimental Aesthetics , 1975 .

[17]  W. Dowling.  Scale and contour: Two components of a theory of memory for melodies. , 1978 .

[18]  James L. McClelland,et al.  Parallel distributed processing: explorations in the microstructure of cognition, vol. 1: foundations , 1986 .

[19]  C. Martindale,et al.  Stylistic Evolution in European Music , 1983 .

[20]  Drew H. Abney,et al.  Journal of Experimental Psychology : Human Perception and Performance Influence of Musical Groove on Postural Sway , 2015 .

[21]  E. Rosch.  The nature of mental codes for color categories. , 1975 .

[22]  Terence McLaughlin.  Music and communication , 1970 .

[23]  C. Martindale,et al.  Cognition and Consciousness , 2021, The Science of Consciousness.

[24]  System in the relationship of affective value to frequency and intensity of auditory stimuli. , 1954, The American journal of psychology.

[25]  C. Martindale,et al.  Relationship of Preference Judgments to Typicality, Novelty, and Mere Exposure , 1988 .

[26]  System in the relationship of affective value to frequency and intensity of auditory stimuli. , 1954 .

[27]  R. Plomp,et al.  The connotation of musical consonance , 1962 .

[28]  J. Wohlwill.  Environmental Aesthetics: The Environment as a Source of Affect , 1976 .

[29]  D. Berlyne,et al.  Effects of auditory pitch and complexity on EEG desynchronization and on verbally expressed judgments. , 1967, Canadian journal of psychology.

[30]  P. Vitz,et al.  Preference for tones as a function of frequency (hertz) and intensity (decibels) , 1972 .

[31]  R. Kaplan,et al.  Rated preference and complexity for natural and urban visual material , 1972 .