Music influences how people interpret a crying human face, according to research published online August 28 in Psychology of Music.
The study was conducted by Tilburg University researchers Ruth E. Mark, Wobbe P. Zijlstra and Ad J. J. M. Vingerhoets, along with Tholen researcher Waldie E. Hanser.
“If this finding is supported in future studies, this may contribute to a better understanding as to why, since the early years of mankind, our ancestors have used music during rituals that are typically associated with strong emotions,” Mark and her colleagues wrote in the study.
For their study, the researchers had 366 visitors to the science center NEMO in Amsterdam rate pictures of crying, smiling, angry, or yawning persons while concurrently listening to happy, angry, sad, or calm music. The participants rated the photographs on three dimensions: kindness, attractiveness and pleasantness.
For happy music, the researchers used Beethoven Symphony No. 6 Mvt. 3. For their sad music, they used Rachmaninov Vocalise op. 30 no. 14. For their calm music, they used Chopin Nocturne op. 9 no. 2. For their angry music, they used Naked City Leng T’che.
Sad or calm background music made the participants more likely to rate a crying person as kind, but had the opposite effect for the perceived kindness of angry faces.
Calm, sad and angry background music made the participants more likely to rate a crying individual as pleasant. However, calm background music made an angry individual less pleasant.
Participants also rated crying individuals as more attractive when listening to calm background music, while angry individuals were rated as less attractive.
The background music appeared to have no effect on the kindness, pleasantness and attractiveness ratings of smiling and yawning individuals. Both facial expressions are fairly unambiguous, which could make it harder for background music to influence their interpretation.
“Music may provide photographs with context,” Mark and her colleagues explained in the study. “More specifically, the emotional valence of the background music provides additional information about a given situation. The combination of crying individuals and (assumed congruent) sad music prompts observers with a situation of distress or loss, while calm music might help to create a context in which tears are experienced as tears of sincerity or being touched.”
