The effect of tempi and mode on the rating of the perceived emotion in music

In this study, we investigated the impact of tempi variations (60, 100, 120, and 150 beats per minute) and major and minor modes on the perceived emotional content of music. To explore this, we created eight versions of five original compositions, resulting in 40 musical stimuli. Control stimuli included variants of white, brown, and pink noise, as well as six human voice recordings. A total of 1280 participants took part in an online survey. Participants were diverse, comprising 262 musicians (defined as individuals with over six years of instrument-playing experience who identified as amateur, semi-professional, or professional). Participants were asked to rate the perceived emotional content of the stimuli, using the second-order factors of the GEMS-9 framework: ‘sublimity’, ‘unease’, and ‘vitality’. We employed a mixed between-within-subjects analysis of variance to analyse the data. Specifically examining the influence of the four tempi, the two modes, while controlling for musicianship, gender, age, and education level. Results showed that as tempi increased, compositions were consistently rated as less sublimity and more vitality, in both major and minor modes. A higher tempi in the major mode resulted in lower ratings of uneasiness. There were also several significant findings for musicianship, gender, and education level, although these mostly had small effect sizes. For age groups, there were two substantial differences between the groups with larger effect sizes. Overall, our findings suggest that tempi and mode significantly influence how compositions are rated for sublimity, unease, and vitality, as they interact.