Associations between Emotional Experience of Music and Expertise, Appreciation, and Absorption

We investigated whether formally trained musicians have differential emotional responses to music than informally trained musicians, music appreciators, and non-musicians. Multiple surveys measured each participant’s musical background, level of music appreciation, and degree of absorption in music. They were then asked to listen to multiple short clips of music and indicate with a descriptive free response the character of their emotional experience to each clip. We also measured parameters such as each participant’s level of emotional intensity, valence, and familiarity for each. Results are discussed in terms of associations between these various individual difference measures and multiple measures of emotion