Aesthetic judgments of music in experts and laypersons
Subtitle
An ERP study
Publication date
2010
Document type
Forschungsartikel
Author
Organisational unit
ISSN
Series or journal
International Journal of Psychophysiology
Periodical volume
76
Periodical issue
1
First page
40
Last page
51
Peer-reviewed
✅
Part of the university bibliography
✅
Keyword
Judgment process
Evaluation
Aesthetics
Music perception
Music aesthetics
Preferences
ERP
EEG
Expertise
Abstract
We investigated whether music experts and laypersons differ with regard to aesthetic evaluation of musical sequences. 16 music experts and 16 music laypersons judged the aesthetic value (beauty judgment task) as well as the harmonic correctness (correctness judgment task) of chord sequences. The sequences consisted of five chords with the final chord sounding congruous, ambiguous or incongruous relative to the harmonic context established by the preceding four chords. On behavioural measures, few differences were observed between experts and laypersons. However, several differences in event-related potential (ERP) parameters were observed in auditory, cognitive and aesthetic processing of chord cadences between experts and laypersons. First, established ERP effects known to reflect the processing of harmonic rule violation were investigated. Here, differences between the groups were observed in the processing of the mild violation — experts and laypersons differed in their early brain responses to the beginning of the chord sequence. Furthermore, ERP data indicated distinctions between experts and laypersons in aesthetic evaluation at three different stages. Firstly, during the interval of task-cue presentation, a stronger contingent negative variation (CNV) to the beauty judgment task was observed for experts, indicating that experts invest more effort into preparation for aesthetic processes than into correctness judgments. Secondly, during the first four chords, preparation for the correctness judgment required more exertion on the laypersons' side. Thirdly, during the last chord, laypersons showed a larger late and widespread positivity for the beauty compared to the correctness judgment, indicating a stronger reliance on internal affective states while forming a judgment.
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