From joy to fear, music evokes 13 key emotions

- Whitney Houston Star-Spangled Banner's song awakens pride, while Ed Sheeran's Shape of you brings joy. George Michael's Careless Whispers, on the other hand, unleashes all its seductive power after deal. Some of the 13 key emotions that music evokes are many of which we already know from direct experience, which have been mapped in a new study by researchers at the University of Berkeley, California. They investigated the emotional responses of over 2,500 people in the United States and China to thousands of rock, folk, jazz, classical, experimental and heavy metal songs, leading to the conclusion that subjective experience across cultures can be traced back to within some areas: fun, joy, eroticism, beauty, relaxation, sadness, daydreaming, triumph, anxiety, fear, annoyance, challenge and energy.
"You can imagine - explains the lead author of the study, Alan Cowen - organizing an eclectic music library through emotion and capturing the combination of feelings associated with each track. This is essentially what our research has done." The findings are published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. For the study, participants rated around 40 musical samples based on 28 categories of emotions, as well as on a scale of positivity and negativity. Using statistical analyzes, the researchers then came up to 13 overall categories. Subsequently, a thousand people evaluated over 300 additional music samples. For example, it emerged that Clash's Rock the Casbah gave energy, while Al Green's Let's Stay Together evoked sensuality. Heavy metal was considered provocative and, just as the composer wanted, the Psycho soundtrack sparked fear. There is also an interactive map (www.ocf.berkeley.edu/%7Eacowen/music.html#modal) where you can have fun comparing yourself. (HANDLE).