Li Marjorie G, Olsen Kirk N, Thompson William Forde
School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, NSW 2109, Australia.
Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, NSW 2109, Australia.
Brain Sci. 2025 Apr 29;15(5):477. doi: 10.3390/brainsci15050477.
Emotion perception in music is shaped by cultural background, yet the extent of cultural biases remains unclear. This study investigated how Western listeners perceive emotion in music across cultures, focusing on the accuracy and intensity of emotion recognition and the musical features that predict emotion perception. : White-European (Western) listeners from the UK, USA, New Zealand, and Australia ( = 100) listened to 48 ten-second excerpts of Western classical and Chinese traditional bowed-string music that were validated by experts to convey happiness, sadness, agitation, and calmness. After each excerpt, participants rated the familiarity, enjoyment, and perceived intensity of the four emotions. Musical features were computationally extracted for regression analyses. : Western listeners experienced Western classical music as more familiar and enjoyable than Chinese music. Happiness and sadness were recognised more accurately in Western classical music, whereas agitation was more accurately identified in Chinese music. The perceived intensity of happiness and sadness was greater for Western classical music; conversely, the perceived intensity of agitation was greater for Chinese music. Furthermore, emotion perception was influenced by both culture-shared (e.g., timbre) and culture-specific (e.g., dynamics) musical features. : Our findings reveal clear cultural biases in the way individuals perceive and classify music, highlighting how these biases are shaped by the interaction between cultural familiarity and the emotional and structural qualities of the music. We discuss the possibility that purposeful engagement with music from diverse cultural traditions-especially in educational and therapeutic settings-may cultivate intercultural empathy and an appreciation of the values and aesthetics of other cultures.
音乐中的情感感知受文化背景影响，但其文化偏见的程度尚不清楚。本研究调查了西方听众如何跨文化地感知音乐中的情感，重点关注情感识别的准确性和强度以及预测情感感知的音乐特征。：来自英国、美国、新西兰和澳大利亚的白人欧洲（西方）听众（ = 100）聆听了48段时长为十秒的西方古典音乐和中国传统弓弦乐节选，这些节选经专家验证可传达快乐、悲伤、激动和平静。听完每段节选后，参与者对这四种情感的熟悉程度、愉悦程度和感知强度进行评分。通过计算提取音乐特征进行回归分析。：西方听众认为西方古典音乐比中国音乐更熟悉、更令人愉悦。在西方古典音乐中，快乐和悲伤能被更准确地识别，而激动在中国音乐中能被更准确地识别。西方古典音乐中快乐和悲伤的感知强度更大；相反，中国音乐中激动的感知强度更大。此外，情感感知受文化共享（如音色）和文化特定（如力度）的音乐特征影响。：我们的研究结果揭示了个体在感知和分类音乐方式上存在明显的文化偏见，突出了这些偏见是如何由文化熟悉度与音乐的情感和结构特质之间的相互作用所塑造的。我们讨论了有目的地接触来自不同文化传统的音乐——尤其是在教育和治疗环境中——可能培养跨文化同理心以及对其他文化的价值观和美学的欣赏的可能性。
