MARCS Research Seminar

Title of the Seminar: 'Return of the DAG. Matching the music with the feel.'

Abstract: Many people enjoy music that makes them feel strong emotions. However, music psychologists have become interested in the distinction between felt emotion and the emotion that the music is representing. For example, a piece might make a listener feel little emotion, while the music itself expresses very strong emotions. Such a simultaneous difference in emotions has only recently been researched, and one study of this difference suggests that people enjoy music when the emotion felt is well matched with the expressed emotion. This matching has been referred to as the 'Differential Affect Gap' (DAG). In the present paper I will report how the DAG factor works, and how it might be explained. An interesting idea arises from the philosophical view that music has human-like qualities, and just as with humans, we can have quasi 'empathising' responses to music. Thus, we are able to 'capture' a contagious emotion in music as we do when naturally smiling when we see a friend smiling, and feel an empathic sadness when we see that person feeling sad.