University of Porto, Porto, Portugal.
Cogn Emot. 2011 Jun;25(4):585-98. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2010.502449.
In comparison with other modalities, the recognition of emotion in music has received little attention. An unexplored question is whether and how emotion recognition in music changes as a function of ageing. In the present study, healthy adults aged between 17 and 84 years (N=114) judged the magnitude to which a set of musical excerpts (Vieillard et al., 2008) expressed happiness, peacefulness, sadness and fear/threat. The results revealed emotion-specific age-related changes: advancing age was associated with a gradual decrease in responsiveness to sad and scary music from middle age onwards, whereas the recognition of happiness and peacefulness, both positive emotional qualities, remained stable from young adulthood to older age. Additionally, the number of years of music training was associated with more accurate categorisation of the musical emotions examined here. We argue that these findings are consistent with two accounts on how ageing might influence the recognition of emotions: motivational changes towards positivity and, to a lesser extent, selective neuropsychological decline.
与其他模态相比，音乐中的情感识别受到的关注较少。一个尚未探究的问题是，音乐中的情感识别是否以及如何随着年龄的增长而变化。在本研究中，年龄在 17 至 84 岁之间的健康成年人（N=114）判断了一组音乐片段（Vieillard 等人，2008）表达快乐、平静、悲伤和恐惧/威胁的程度。结果显示，情感特异性与年龄相关的变化：从中年开始，随着年龄的增长，对悲伤和恐怖音乐的反应逐渐减弱，而对快乐和平静的认知——这两种积极的情感品质——则从青年期到老年期保持稳定。此外，音乐训练的年限与对这里所研究的音乐情感的更准确分类有关。我们认为，这些发现与两种关于衰老如何影响情感识别的解释一致：对积极性的动机变化，以及在较小程度上的选择性神经心理学衰退。
