Psychophysiological Responses to Isolated Musical Chord Progressions

Indianapolis, IN

It is widely accepted that music is capable of inducing emotional responses, but there is a great deal of dissension among the research concerning the nature of those responses. The present study aims to begin identifying some specific components of music that contribute to musical emotions by evaluating electrodermal activity and heart rate responses to isolated cadential chord progressions of varying conventionality. Because electrodermal activity is known to increase with arousal, and arousal is related to musical expectancy, I predict that electrodermal activity will be the highest for progressions containing tritones, which are extremely unconventional. I further hypothesize that heart rate will increase with increasing unconventionality.