Empirical approaches to understanding musical awe: Qualitative and quantitative investigations into experience and perception

Short abstract

This paper presents an investigation into musical awe through a series of six studies that examined participant accounts and perceptual experimentation. Studies 1 and 2 investigated qualitative descriptions of awe and sublimity in musical experiences. These studies found a commonality in language used describing these experiences as positively valenced and conceptually large. Studies 3, 4, and 5 found valence-related perceptual associations in awe-related music. Study 6 showed a connection between time-series ratings of musical size and awe, suggesting that that judgements of musical size act as a precedent cognitive evaluation to perceptions of awe in music.

Background

The emotion of awe is poorly understood in research with few studies focused on its nature and occurrence. Foundational theoretical research was carried out by Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt (2003) that proposed that experiences of awe can be understood through two central cognitive appraisals: perceived vastness and a need for accommodation. In this prototype to awe, they theorised that music was able to elicit awe through these features but had not been empirically tested. This paper summarises six studies undertaken in doctoral research to better understand why music can elicit such strong emotional responses and bring us into awe.

Aims

The aims of this paper were to provide a data-driven understanding of the nature and occurrence of musical awe through the utilisation a variety of systematic musicological techniques to examine the claims made by Keltner and Haidt through these processes.

Method

Study 1 examined self-reported experiences of awe through an online survey and questionnaire to find commonalities in the occurrence of musical awe. Study 2 investigated these commonalities through historical accounts found in the Listener Experience Database (http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/LED). Studies 3, 4, and 5 assessed awe-related music’s perceptual associations of arousal, valence, and emotional recognition. Study 6 investigated the relationship between ratings of size and awe through a real-time virtual object manipulation experiment.

Results

In summary, these six studies showed that in the examined population (predominately western European and North American), experiences of musical awe are often powerful emotional experiences associated with pleasantness and aesthetic emotions like ‘wonder’. Notably, a subset of awe-related music is negatively valenced and related to emotions of ‘fear’ and ‘threat’. Though this research suggests that two different variations of awe exist, they both share similar appraisals of musical size, suggesting that the theorised appraisal processes may be suitable for both variations.

Conclusions

Using a variety of research techniques to analyse theoretical ideas about the experience of awe has provided empirical validation for these claims. Though not everything proposed in prototype of awe was found to be correct, the central cognitive appraisals do seem to offer explanatory mechanisms for how awe is instantiated in the listener. Though by no means do these cognitive appraisals explain the formation of every instance of musical awe, as there are many extra musical features that influence these experiences, but they do provide a helpful framework for how to evaluate these types of strong emotional experiences. The studies reported here illustrate the commonalities of these experiences and encourage explorations into the state of awe, as it remains a relatively unexplored area of research in music and emotions. Future work should aim to develop the other half of the theoretical assertion and explore the role of musical novelty and predictability in the need for accommodation.

Keywords

awe, perception, cognition, music psychology

Keltner, D. & Haidt, J. (2003) Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion, Cognition and Emotion, 17:2, 297-314, https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930302297