Which moodstates can be expressed in music?

Author(s): Meerum-Terwogt, M.

Journal/Book: Tijdschrift voor Kreatieve Therapie. 1992; Hilversum, Netherlands. Nederlandse Vereniging voor Kreatieve Therapie (NVKT). Journal article.

Abstract: Three different groups (5- and 10-years-old children and adults) were asked to link a number of selected fragments of music to one out of the four emotions: happiness, sadness, fear and anger (in which the emotions were represented by their facial expression). The consensus of choices increased with age, but was consirable even among the youngest children. Fear and anger were harder to identify in music than happiness and sadness. In the case of angry music, this is probably caused by the phenomenon that the subjects (especially the youngest children) were often inclined to answer, not by identifying the character of the stimulus, but by character of their response: fear. In a post hoc experiment we found some indications that music particulary expresses the positive-negative value and the degree of activity of a moodstate very well. The problems with the identification of fear were explained in terms of the undefined position of this moodstate on the last dimension.

Keyword(s): Adults, children, mood, expression.

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