Liking and identifying emotionally expressive music: Age and gender differences.
Author: Hunter PG, Glenn Schellenberg E, Stalinski SM.
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 1C6.
Conference/Journal: J Exp Child Psychol.
Date published: 2011 Apr 28
Other:
Word Count: 144
Adults and children 5, 8, and 11years of age listened to short excerpts of unfamiliar music that sounded happy, scary, peaceful, or sad. Listeners initially rated how much they liked each excerpt. They subsequently made a forced-choice judgment about the emotion that each excerpt conveyed. Identification accuracy was higher for young girls than for young boys, but both genders reached adult-like levels by age 11. High-arousal emotions (happiness and fear) were better identified than low-arousal emotions (peacefulness and sadness), and this advantage was exaggerated among younger children. Whereas children of all ages preferred excerpts depicting high-arousal emotions, adults favored excerpts depicting positive emotions (happiness and peacefulness). A preference for positive emotions over negative emotions was also evident among females of all ages. As identification accuracy improved, liking for positively valenced music increased among 5- and 8-year-olds but decreased among 11-year-olds.
Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
PMID: 21530980
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