An Empirical Study On The Influence Of Musical Melody Expectation On Emotional Experience

As an auditory art,listening to music has become a way of life for contemporary people.Music can be used to experience or regulate emotions and provide people with spiritual food.Music is the art of time.Melody,as an important theme of music,is an important element of emotional experience induced by music.Listeners usually have an implicit expectation of the upcoming musical elements,which affects their emotional experience(Meyer,1956).Individuals achieve the results of melodic expectation emotional experience,including several stages,generating expectations,identifying expectations,emotional experience.So far,music melody expectation or music emotional experience are often studied separately at home and abroad,but there is no specific empirical research on individual emotional experience of music melody expectation.Although harmony has been studied as an expectant material to affect emotional experience,there is little research on the effect of melodic expectation on emotional experience as a recognized theme of music.Accordingly,this study aims to explore the following issues:on the ontological factors of music,the impact of melody expectation realization/violation on emotional experience,the impact of melody expectation realization/violation on emotional experience,and the differences of emotional experience between individuals with or without music learning experience in different types of melody expectation.This paper includes a preliminary experiment and two formal studies.Pre-experiment:According to the basic rules of melody development,referring to the monophonic solfeggio course,12 music melody expectation materials with different tonality are compiled in major.The starting paradigm is adopted,and only the ending tone(target tone)is changed to form 12 music expectation violation materials.The subjects selected 20 music academies who had studied music for more than 10 years to verify the reliability of melody types,judge and score the intensity of fulfillment or violation of expectations,and finally selected 6 materials with higher degree of fulfillment and violation of expectations as formal experimental materials.Study 1:The experimental paradigm was the initiation paradigm.Sixty subjects(30 without music learning experience and 30 with music learning experience)were asked to judge the concordance/pleasure of the ending tone(accuracy and response time as indicators)and the subjective emotional experience score(pleasure,arousal)of the melodic fragments.Wakefulness and surprise are indicators.To explore the influence of melody expectation realization/violation on emotional experience and the difference between music learning experience and non-music learning experience.Study 2:On the basis of study 1,the relationship between musical melody expectation and time operation is discussed.Four types of experimental materials(expected to achieve the target sound ahead of time,expected to achieve the target sound delay,expected to violate the target sound ahead of time,expected to violate the target sound delay)will be formed by studying a material in advance or delayed in time operation.The experimental process is the same as that of the study.The purpose of this study is to investigate whether target tone advance/delay affects musical melody expectation,which leads to differences in emotional experience and musical learning experience.The main results are as follows:(1)In terms of individual factors,the correct rate of individual recognition of melody expectation type was significantly affected by music learning experience(F(1,58)=90.266,p<.001,?~2=0.609),and the correct rate of group with music learning experience was significantly higher than that of group without music learning experience.Individual response time to melody expectation type recognition was significantly affected by music learning experience(F(1,58)=9.623,p<.001,?~2=0.142).The response time of the group with music learning experience was significantly lower than that of the group without music learning experience.(2)Intermsofexpectationrealization/violationfactorsofmusic ontology,individual emotional experience pleasure was significantly affected by the type of melody expectation material(F(1,58)=69.416,p<.001,?~2=0.545).The material of melody expectation was significantly higher than the material of melody expectation violation,but not by music learning experience(p=0.483).Individual emotional experience tension was significantly affected by the type of melody expectation material(F(1,58)=50.875,p<.001,?~2=0.467).The material of melody expectation realization was significantly lower than the awakening score of material of melody expectation violation,and was not significantly affected by music learning experience(p=0.824).Individual emotional experience surprise was significantly affected by the type of melody expectation material(F(1,58)=10.788,p<.001,?~2=0.157),and the material expected to achieve melody was significantly lower than that of material contrary to melody expectation(P=0.960),but not by music learning experience(P=0.960).That is to say,the material emotional experience expected to be realized is more pleasant,less tense and less surprising,while the material emotional experience expected to be violated is less pleasant,more tense and more surprising.Individual emotional experience pleasure,tension and surprise were not significantly affected by music learning experience.(3)In terms of the anticipation/delay factors of the music itself,time operation can significantly affect the accuracy of expectation recognition(F(3,56)=12.083,p<.001,?~2=0.393).The accuracy of materials that violate the target tone ahead is significantly lower than that of the other three groups.Time operation can significantly affect the expected recognition reaction time(F(3,56)=62.627,p<.001,?~2=0.770),and the material reaction time expected to achieve target sound ahead is significantly greater than that of the other three groups of materials.Because of the change of correct rate and reaction time,time manipulation significantly affects the pleasure,tension and surprise of emotional experience.Time manipulation has an impact on the pleasure,tension and surprise of emotional experience,but it has no great impact on the realization and violation of expectations.Conclusions and Significance:On the basis of previous studies on musical expectation,this study further refines and confirms the universality of musical expectation affecting emotional experience,provides evidence for people without musical learning experience to identify and process musical melody rules,and proposes that musical expectation emotional experience is affected by time operation.This research is based on the expectation of music melody.By discussing the difference of expectation emotional experience between people with or without music learning experience,it provides theoretical support for the process of music melody expectation affecting emotional experience,theoretically enriches the melodic factors of music expectation affecting emotional experience,provides certain theoretical reference for music aesthetics and music appreciation,and provides a more targeted choice for music therapy.Choosing music provides a theoretical basis.