Improving specificity of the musical mood induction procedure.

The musical mood induction procedure was used to induce 3 negative moods: sadness, fatigue and anxiety. Induction was validated using subjective and physiological measures. One hundred twenty-seven participants listened to one of 18 film soundtrack excerpts for 20 minutes. Physiological response (heart rate, respiration, skin conductance level (SCL), and facial electromyography) was recorded throughout the induction and postinduction phases. Subjective mood ratings (sadness, anxiety, tiredness, valence, arousal) were provided before induction and throughout the postinduction phase. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed increase in valence and decrease in arousal in all conditions after induction, which persisted in the postinduction phase, and an increase in tiredness immediately after induction. Reduction in SCL was strongest in the fatigue condition. However, difference between groups was only evident when comparing fatigue and sadness conditions between 3-10 minutes. Lack of between-group differences and mixed physiological findings suggest that specificity is difficult to achieve through musical mood induction.

Improving specificity of the musical mood induction procedure.

The musical mood induction procedure was used to induce 3 negative moods: sadness, fatigue and anxiety. Induction was validated using subjective and physiological measures. One hundred twenty-seven participants listened to one of 18 film soundtrack excerpts for 20 minutes. Physiological response (heart rate, respiration, skin conductance level (SCL), and facial electromyography) was recorded throughout the induction and postinduction phases. Subjective mood ratings (sadness, anxiety, tiredness, valence, arousal) were provided before induction and throughout the postinduction phase. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed increase in valence and decrease in arousal in all conditions after induction, which persisted in the postinduction phase, and an increase in tiredness immediately after induction. Reduction in SCL was strongest in the fatigue condition. However, difference between groups was only evident when comparing fatigue and sadness conditions between 3-10 minutes. Lack of between-group differences and mixed physiological findings suggest that specificity is difficult to achieve through musical mood induction.

Autism, Music, and the Therapeutic Potential of Music in Alexithymia

IT HAS BEEN ARGUED, IN VIEW OF THE SOCIAL evolutionary origins of music and the social deficits found in autism, that individuals with autism will be emotionally unresponsive to music. However, a recent study of high-functioning adults with autism has shown that they appear to have a range of responses to music similar to typically developing people, including the deliberate use of music for mood management. In examining why these responses appear unaffected in autism, we explore possible mechanisms for musical mood induction in listeners, hypothesizing that the simulation theory of empathy may illuminate current controversies over the nature of emotion in music. Drawing on these ideas, we put forward suggestions for using a simple associative learning process between musically induced emotions and their cognitive correlates for the clinical treatment of alexithymia, a disorder that is common in autism and characterized by an absence of cognitive insight into one's emotions.

A Musical Mood Induction Alleviates Dysfunctional Attitudes in Needy and Self-Critical Individuals

The “mood-state hypothesis” (Miranda & Persons, 1988) suggests that dysfunctional beliefs are latent in individuals vulnerable to depression until activated by a negative mood. The purpose of the current study was twofold: (a) to validate a new musical mood induction procedure and (b) to test the cognitive reactivity (or changes in the endorsement of dysfunctional beliefs) in individuals hypothesized to be vulnerable to depression (Blatt, Zohar, Quinlan, Zuroff, & Mongrain, 1995). The mood induction procedure was found to be highly effective for both the positive and the negative conditions. Needy and self-critical participants reported increases in the endorsement of dysfunctional attitudes with the depressing music. With the elating music, needy and self-critical participants experiencing an increase in happiness reported lower levels of dysfunctional attitudes. The findings support state-trait models of depressive vulnerability (Zuroff, Blatt, Sanislow, & Bondi, 1999) and further illustrate how positive mood states can ameliorate the report of maladaptive thoughts.

Emotion induction through music: A review of the musical mood induction procedure

This article reviews research showing that music can alter peoples’ moods and emotions. The so called “musical mood induction procedure” (MMIP) relies on music to produce changes in experienced affective processes. The fact that music can have this effect on subjective experience has been utilized to study the effect of mood on cognitive processes and behavior by a large number of researchers in social, clinical, and personality psychology. This extensive body of literature, while little known among music psychologists, is likely to further help music psychologists understand affective responses to music. With this in mind, the present article aims at providing an extensive review of the methodology behind a number of studies using the MMIP. The effectiveness of music as a mood-inducing stimulus is discussed in terms of self-reports, physiological, and behavioral indices. The discussion focuses on how findings from the MMIP literature may extend into current research and debate on the complex interplay of music and emotional responses.