Music and Emotion: The Role of Musical Features and Psychological Mechanisms

Music is closely related to human emotions and has the ability to affect the psychological state of listeners. Studies have shown that music can affect the emotions of listeners through a number of psychological mechanisms and musical features. Musical elements such as tempo, mode, pitch, rhythm, and timbre influence the emotions expressed in a musical composition. Secondly, music affects the psychological state of the listeners through mechanisms such as contagion, memory and musical expectation. Differences in personality may also influence responses to music. Emotional responses to the same piece of music may vary, and may be influenced by a person's personality, music experience, memory and music preference. Contextual and motivational variables may also influence the outcome. Music can make one person feel positive emotions and another person feel negative emotions. These factors combine to affect how listeners hear, understand and expect the music to sound. This essay will examine the psychological mechanisms that explain how musical features affect emotions, with a special emphasis on music and emotion.