Physics of Life Reviews 7 (2010) 4954

www.elsevier.com/locate/plrev

Reply to Comment

Musical emotions, cognitive science, and art of music

Leonid Perlovsky
Harvard University, Cambridge, and Air Force Research Lab., Hanscom AFB, MA, USA
Received 14 January 2010; accepted 28 January 2010
Available online 1 February 2010
Communicated by J. Fontanari

Abstract
Various proposals and criticisms are addressed. Particular attention is given to future developments, both theoretical and experimental.
Published by Elsevier B.V.
Keywords: Music; Emotions; Cognition, origin; Evolution; Knowledge instinct; Differentiation; Synthesis; Consciousness; Cultures

I am grateful to the commentators for the attention and effort they put into reading and responding to the target
review. They made significant and excellent suggestions to the future theoretical and experimental studies of music
and synthetic art forms. I would also like to acknowledge with gratitude the help derived from R. Taruskins books
when working on the target review [30,33].
Further development of computational methods modelling musical emotions and their functions in cognition will
be important in studying the reviewed hypotheses [2]. A connectionist model of the relationships between music
perception and its emotional appraisal [57] can be used for the detailed development of the proposed relations. An
analysis of the network parameters can be used for elucidating the role of specific psychoacoustic variables in music
emotional appraisal and the role of psycho-physiological measurements in music emotions [8]. This analysis can be
used to verify that music directly elicits affective responses in the listener. Analysing these emotional responses and
their physiologic and psychological effects can confirm or deny the ability of musical emotions to reduce psychological dissonances. This method can further be used to study the parallel interactions among music, language, and
emotions, and the effects of these interactions on evolution and development.
L. Trainor [32] emphasized once more that the evolution of music is based on earlier adaptations, which have
evolved for various purposes. Among the most ancient adaptations is rhythmic behaviour; it involves coordination of
motor and auditory neural circuitry. This may explain why rhythm appeals powerfully to mass social engagements,
and why some people perceive rhythm as a more primitive aspect of music compared with melody, harmony, and
DOI of original article: 10.1016/j.plrev.2009.11.001.
DOI of comments: 10.1016/j.plrev.2009.12.005, 10.1016/j.plrev.2010.01.011, 10.1016/j.plrev.2010.01.009, 10.1016/j.plrev.2010.01.004,
10.1016/j.plrev.2009.12.003, 10.1016/j.plrev.2010.01.010, 10.1016/j.plrev.2010.01.005, 10.1016/j.plrev.2010.01.003, 10.1016/j.plrev.2010.01.008,
10.1016/j.plrev.2010.01.013.
E-mail address: leonid@seas.harvard.edu.
URL: http://leonid-perlovsky.com/.
1571-0645/$ see front matter Published by Elsevier B.V.
doi:10.1016/j.plrev.2010.01.016

50

L. Perlovsky / Physics of Life Reviews 7 (2010) 4954

polyphony. It may also explain why the military drum is often perceived as less spiritually high than Bach fugues.
There is no theory, except for the target review, which explains the evolution of music from rhythm to fugue. The
commentary by L. Trainor emphasizes the importance of experimental and empirical confirmations of this hypothesis.
Can we design experiments confirming the hypothesis of the target review? It seems especially challenging to identify
causal relations. Let me slow down for a moment; even while questioning causal directions, relating musical emotions
to contradictions in knowledge is a major step in understanding cognitive functions of music.
Establishing causal directions may not be an insurmountable difficulty. Direction of causality in the development
from a drum to organ and fugue, it seems, is clear. It took 4000 years for monotheistic religions to evolve before
humans concentrated with intensity on understanding their highest purposes. Baroque fugues are perceived by many
as addressing emotional contradictions in understanding of the highest purposes; their highest development came
more than a century after Reformation. Nobody would suggest that Bach fugues caused Reformation. Can we experimentally prove that Bach fugues address spiritually high concerns? How can we experimentally define spiritually
high emotions? Intercultural comparisons offer several directions. But even classical psychological methodology
within western culture, it seems, is quite capable of addressing this question.
D. Levine [13] points out that differentiated consciousness or synthesis even in the best combinations do not always
lead to long life or to many descendants. In general this is certainly true, since evolutionary advantages of these
psychic qualities are expected to be effective on average. And yet, even within a short life without descendants, they
can contribute to group survival by influencing many group members. We value Mozarts contribution to culture not
because he left many descendants. I do not know how to consider a suggestion that the hypothesis of the target review is
supported or refuted by few scientific findings; without drawing qualitative parallels to the general theory of relativity,
the target review refers to many more supporting scientific facts. After emergence of language, communication seems
a very distant secondary cognitive function of music; the primary function is that of synthesis. This role of music
in balancing reason-emotion imbalance hopefully will generate much research among a wealth of potential future
experimental studies discussed by many commentators. D. Levines suggestion of the similarity between music and
religion might have deep roots. Both are ancient human universals because, I believe, both served the same purpose
of synthesis. Music and religion as mechanisms of individual psyche are different from social institutions bearing the
same names. Only the first one is the scientific topic of this review.
R. Kozma [12] discusses a theoretical dynamic model of oscillatory patterns of the brain EEG activity, providing
tentative relations to possible brain modules involved in musical emotions. Whereas the amygdala, an ancient brain
region, is involved in instinctive emotions, uniquely human prefrontal cortical areas are commonly associated with
cognitive emotions. The global metastable state of the brain electrical activity he suggests could be the outcome of
the interplay of the two complementary effects. One effect is due to the amygdala and midline forebrain mediating
instinctive emotions, while the other emotional component is coming from prefrontal cortical areas projecting higher
cognitive functions. Can the reviewed hypothesis unify such vastly different and complementary aspects of human
emotions. On one hand prehistoric evolutionary conditions mediated by paleocortical brain components, and on the
other hand, a high level of abstraction corresponding to functions of the newest and most advanced cortical regions.
This hypothesis it seems could be studied by correlating musical emotions with EEG activities.
Initial experimental steps were taken in [14,26] to study the knowledge instinct mechanism. Its precursors in
primates [16,17] as well as further studies proposed in commentaries, including the brain regions involved will help
establishing specific emotions related to knowledge, their neural mechanisms, and relations to music. H. Purwins [27]
emphasizes that testing the roles of the knowledge instinct and musical emotions in cultural evolution will require
more research. I would like to emphasize that these tests are not beyond reach. Several research directions can be
pursued in addition to mathematical simulations. First, historical cultural studies of parallel evolution of knowledge,
music, and cultures, as outlined in the target review Chapter 10.1. Second, this can be extended to comparative studies
of various cultures. Third, the role of music is similar to speech prosody, therefore the emotionality of languages and
its influence on cultural evolution [23] can complement studies of the role of music in cultural evolution.
Further experimental approaches to studying properties of emotions have been addressed in [4,8,10,11]. From commentaries I see that my proposal to understand musical emotions in their similarity to cognitive-dissonance emotions
is just one of the directions of future research. Other directions include studying the three emotional spaces separately:
musical emotions, speech-prosody emotions, and cognitive-dissonance emotions. Experimental measurements of subjectively perceived emotional tensions among conceptual knowledge, similarities and differences between emotions
in each space can be analysed separately and jointly. Dimensionalities and possibly topological properties of these

L. Perlovsky / Physics of Life Reviews 7 (2010) 4954

51

spaces can be analysed. Diversities of these emotional spaces can be expected in the following order: consciously perceived diversity is the highest for music, unconscious diversity is the highest for cognitive dissonance, speech-prosody
emotional diversity varies among languages and is probably the lowest among the three. Second, experimental and
mathematical studies can address similarities among these emotional spaces to elucidate projections between these
spaces. In parallel, the overlaps among the involved brain mechanisms can be studied. In this way more detailed
understanding can be gained of specific emotions involved in knowledge; the role of music in reducing psychological tensions created by contradictions within the body of knowledge, and restoring the synthesis of a differentiated
psyche.
Music affects emotions directly, whereas visual arts mostly affect emotions indirectly, through conceptual understanding, which in turn evokes emotional responses. It is therefore hypothesized that visual art can attune its
connoisseurs to emotions already existing in culture, whereas music can create new emotions, which is its unique
property. While comparing music to gastronomic art, it is possible that the later can appeal to emotions directly. The
principal difference of music, it is proposed, is its ability to appeal to the highest emotions of meanings [21,22,25]. In
this respect I agree with the commentary by N. Masataka [16] that music, by attuning the individuals affordances, can
attune one to perceiving the highest meaning; experimental tests of this proposal would be of significant importance.
Babies perceive the emotionality of their mothers speech before learning its semantic contents [27]. Thus every
human being in its ontogeny passes through a state of a unified proto-music-language. This creates a research opportunity to study the process of splitting of emotional and semantic contents of human vocalization. The target review
in Chapter 10.2 addresses ongoing experiments elucidating the related brain mechanisms.
Contributions by E. Condillac [3] and J.-J. Rousseau [28] to the topic of music and language, and their review by
D. Thomas [31] are brought up by E. Mirandas comments [19]. J.-J. Rousseau has been ahead of time in his intuition
about parallel evolution of cognition and language. Along with many other distinguished thinkers he emphasized the
joint origin of music and language. He considered unified language and music in operatic performance as a pinnacle
of the musical form (what the target review calls synthesis of semantic and emotional). Similar views two centuries
earlier were expressed by Luther [15], who saw in music the synthetic power that unifies the Word of God with
human passions: Therefore . . . message and music join to move the listeners soul . . . The gift of language combined
with the gift of song . . . In attempts to advance these ideas from a religious to scientific form, however, the great
philosopher could not extricate his arguments from circular thinking. If language and music were unified initially
and their unification was the highest development of music, than what was the purpose and meaning of the evolution
of music? J.-J. Rousseau was at best ambivalent about his precursory ideas of evolution; he considered the original
state of man as more pure and possibly more perfect. In historical evolution of the theory of the musical effect
on human soul, the great philosopher adhered to an ancient view of music, as imitation, which descended from Plato,
Boethius, Descartes, V. Galilei, and was formulated by J. Mattheson [18] in Doctrine of Affections. He did not
notice the emergence of a contemporary view of music as expression [1] that is, as creation of diverse emotions.
An outstanding thinker of his time, J.-J. Rousseau cannot be faulted for his inability to explain the mystery of music,
which has remained an enigma since Aristotle to this day, and which explanation is among the aims of the target
review [24].
Artificial agents communicating with music [20] so far were not able to demonstrate the fundamental function
of music similar to that in all human cultures. Such a demonstration would be of a significant interest. I would take
this opportunity to emphasize that achieving this goal may require understanding the main idea of the target review.
It is not a split of primordial proto-language into language and music, which has been discussed for centuries. The
fundamental uniqueness of the reviewed hypothesis among all other theories of musical emotions is in connecting
musical emotions to contradictions in knowledge, and thus identifying the cognitive function of music as maintaining
a synthesis of differentiated psyche [24].
The proposed view of musical function as synthesis using emotional mechanisms related to voice has been
questioned in view of existence of sign languages and adequate functioning deaf people (F. Fontanari, private communication). I would suggest that it is at least unscientific to doubt depth, breadth, and originality of emotions of
deaf people. Possibly the proposed experimental and mathematical methods of studying emotional spaces of cognitive dissonance, language prosody, and music, should also be applied to studying emotional spaces of sign languages.
L. Trainor questions how the target review theory would explain adequate functioning of amusic people. Several hypothetical explanations can be advanced, which could be tested experimentally. Here I would concentrate on one,
which addresses both cases, deafness and amusia. These people are functioning in a society of others capable of per-

52

L. Perlovsky / Physics of Life Reviews 7 (2010) 4954

ceiving and creating musical emotions. There are many cultural means of exchanging emotional information, which
has been already accepted by cultural collective consciousness. F. Fontanari and L. Trainor imply a proposal that deaf
and amusic people could be more emotionally endowed than some people with normal auditory and music abilities.
This can and should be tested experimentally. Moreover, I would offer an anecdotal support for their views. I know
many musicians; some of them are outstanding people by any measure with deep and wide worldviews. Some others
perform music (even in respectable orchestras) as any person performs his or her job (while one has not discovered
his or her true calling); these people never talk about music with passion, it seems they do not like music, and emotional content of music they perform is not important for them. I would remind that most people, most of the time
do not use original knowledge (Tversky and Kahneman, the Nobel Prize 2002). Nevertheless, original knowledge has
been created [14] and this differentiates people from animals. Individual differences are of great interest and could be
experimentally assessed, but in no way they would contradict our main thesis.
A fundamental difficulty in studying diversity of emotions beyond arousal and valence, and beyond primary
emotions named by words, is in that we do not know how to measure qualities of emotions. We proposed several
measurement techniques, first, cognitive dissonances are described in words; second, musical emotions can be compared to cognitive dissonances; third a general appropriate to any emotional space is to measure subjective differences
and similarities between pairs of emotions and then to deduce mathematically dimensionalities and topologies of
entire spaces from finite number of measurements; fourth, brain imaging offers a new approach to measuring emotions, fMRI gives a possibility of fingerprinting any type of emotions, these 3-dimensional image fingerprints of
emotions can be used to compare emotions of different origins, so that they can be related and eventually discussed
in words. We could compare and relate emotions created in various forms of high arts, musical emotions created
by composers; cognitive dissonance emotions created by writers of prose; emotions created by poets that combine
prosodic, musical, and cognitive emotions; emotions created by painters in the interactions of colours and shapes; as
well as differences and similarities among similar emotions across cultures.
The proposal by D.K. Simonton [29] to address individual differences in musical tastes is intriguing and most appropriate. It will be a next step beyond the content of this review. This proposal perfectly fits the general experimental
methodology discussed in the target review and just above. Individual preferences for music are expected to be closely
related to contradictions in the individual system of knowledge and as well as contradictions between knowledge and
primary emotions and drives. The general methodology of using experimental cognitive psychology methods to study
space of musical emotions should be extended to individual preferences in tastes. It would be interesting to apply
mathematical clustering techniques to the space of musical emotions. The results will indicate if individual tastes
form distinct groupings (clusters) are populated by people with different interests and backgrounds, or if existing cultural labels for types of music designate various regions in a homogeneously populated emotional space. This could
become a part of future studies of personality types in relation to knowledge (private suggestion of L. Bartoshuk).
The second proposal by D.K. Simonton [29] to address stylistic changes among composers and their variation over
time is closely related to the above methodologically, but is aimed at a different direction of cultural studies. Such a
study can relate the evolution of musical styles to the evolution of the structure of knowledge and related emotions.
Would it confirm the existing expectations that the structure of knowledge and corresponding emotions evolve to
higher complexity over time? Would it indicate periods of cultural flourishing interrupted by periods of stagnation
and decay? For example, would the periods of wars correspond to arousal at the expense of diversity, or unexpected,
more complicated relations would be discovered? Would periods of cultural flourishing and stagnation be out of sink
(approximately period) in terms of semantic and emotional diversity (as in Fig. 1, [24])? These studies would call
for collaboration of cultural historians, musicologists, and experimental psychologists and neural psychologists.
I agree with the suggestions in the commentary of Y. Dimitrin [9] and I would like to continue the analysis of
synthetic forms of art, unifying music and speech. I hope that future studies by experimental psychologists would
help in several directions. Regarding musical theatre and songs, how do we judge that music and lyric go together?
What are the neural mechanisms enabling these judgments, and what are mathematical properties of the space in
which these judgments are formed? I would suggest that it could be studied experimentally, similarly to the spaces
of musical emotions, cognitive dissonances, etc. discussed above. Next: what is spiritually high? What experimental
cognitive psychology can tell us about the difference between popular and spiritually high. These studies could
address population as a whole, as well as they could differentiate: by interests, education, personality types, age,
high-mindedness. Along with the D.K. Simonton proposal it could become a part of future studies of personality

L. Perlovsky / Physics of Life Reviews 7 (2010) 4954

53

types in relation to knowledge. Possibly several directions of experimental, cognitive, and social psychology would
emerge.
I also agree with Y. Dimitrins [9] suggestion that among fascinating future directions are closer ties between
theoretical and experimental cognitive psychology on one hand and musical art on the other. It would be of great
importance to our culture to bridge the divide of our time between sciences, humanities, and arts by unifying efforts of musicologists, cognitive and neural psychologists, with mathematicians to study aesthetic dissonances in
various spaces, their dimensions and topologies, and then apply this analysis to evolution of music, to practice of
music theatre, poetry, and other genres during the last centuries, as well as trying to look into the future directions of
art.
References
[1] Avison C. Essay on musical expression. In: Dubois P, Avison C, editors. Charles Avisons essay on musical expression: with related writings
by William Hayes and Charles Avison. Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing; 1752. 2004.
[2] Cangelosi A. Connectionist modelling of music emotions. Physics of Life Reviews 2010;7(1):378, this issue.
[3] Condillac EB. Essay on the origin of human knowledge. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 1746. 2001.
[4] Coutinho E. Cognitive dissonance, knowledge instinct and musical emotions. Physics of Life Reviews 2010;7(1):302, this issue.
[5] Coutinho E, Cangelosi A. The use of spatio-connectionist models in psycho-physiological studies of musical emotions. Music Perception
2009;27(1):115.
[6] Coutinho E, Cangelosi A. A neural network model for the prediction of musical emotions. In: Gray J, Nefti-Meziani S, editors. Advances in
cognitive systems. Herts, UK: IET Publisher; in press.
[7] Coutinho E, Cangelosi A. Modeling emotion and embodiment in multi-agent systems. In: Hexmoor H, Thompson C, editors. Proceedings of
2007 international conference on integration of knowledge intensive multi-agent systems (KIMAS07). IEEE Press; 2007. p. 1338.
[8] Coutinho E. Computational and psycho-physiological investigations of musical emotions. PhD Thesis, School of Computing Communications
and Electronics, University of Plymouth, 2009.
[9] Dimitrin Y. Cognition and contemporary music. Physics of Life Reviews 2010;7(1):478, this issue.
[10] Juslin P, Laukka P. Emotional expression in speech and music: Evidence of cross-modal similarities. Annals of the New York Academy of
Sciences 2003;1000(1):27982.
[11] Juslin PN, Vstfjll D. Emotional responses to music: The need to consider underlying mechanisms. Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2008;31(5):55975.
[12] Kozma R. Complementary aspects of emotions and music. Physics of Life Reviews 2010;7(1):413, this issue.
[13] Levine DS. Evolution or culture, but music may soothe the savage breast. Physics of Life Reviews 2010;7(1):3940, this issue.
[14] Levine DS, Perlovsky LI. Neuroscientific insights on Biblical myths. Simplifying heuristics versus careful thinking: Scientific analysis of
millennial spiritual issues. Zygon, Journal of Science and Religion 2008;43(4):797821.
[15] Luther M. Preface to Symphoniae jucundae. In: Luthers works, LIII. Philadelphia: The Fortress Press; 1965. p. 323. (tr. U.C. Leupold), 1538.
[16] Masataka N. Attunement in the perception of affordances as the origin of musical emotions. Physics of Life Reviews 2010;7(1):289, this
issue.
[17] Masataka N, Koda H, Urasopon N, Watanabe K. Free-ranging macaque mothers exaggerate tool-using behavior when observed by offspring.
PLoS One 2009;4:e4768.
[18] Mattheson J. The complete music master; 1739. See [115, p. 217].
[19] Miranda ER. Contextualizing eighteenth century Enlightenment through the lenses of contemporary science. Physics of Life Reviews
2010;7(1):356, this issue.
[20] Miranda ER. A-life for music: Music and computer models of living systems. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions; 2010.
[21] Perlovsky LI. Aesthetics and mathematical theory of intellect. Iskusstvoznanie, Journal of History and Theory of Art 2002;2:55894 (in Russian).
[22] Perlovsky LI. Modeling field theory of higher cognitive functions. In: Loula A, Gudwin R, Queiroz J, editors. Artificial cognition systems.
Hershey, PA: Idea Group; 2006. p. 64105.
[23] Perlovsky LI. Language and emotions: Emotional SapirWhorf hypothesis. Neural Networks 2009;22(56):51826.
[24] Perlovsky L. Musical emotions: Functions, origins, evolution. Physics of Life Reviews 2010;7(1):227, this issue.
[25] Perlovsky LI. Intersections of mathematical, cognitive, and aesthetic theories of mind. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 2010;
in press.
[26] Perlovsky LI, Bonniot-Cabanac M-C, Cabanac M. Curiosity and pleasure. In: International joint conference on neural networks. Barcelona,
July, 2010, accepted for presentation; Proc of the Natl Acad Sc 2010; submitted for publication.
[27] Purwins H. We perceive music before we understand speech. Physics of Life Reviews 2010;7(1):46, this issue.
[28] Rousseau J-J. Essai sur lorigine des langues. In: Essay on the origin of languages and writings related to music (collected writings of
Rousseau). Dartmouth Press; 1998. See English tr. by Scott JT. 1781/1817.
[29] Simonton KE. Personal tastes and stylistic change in music: How do they fit with an evolutionary interpretation? Physics of Life Reviews
2010;7(1):334, this issue.
[30] Taruskin R. Defining Russia musically. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press; 2001.

54

L. Perlovsky / Physics of Life Reviews 7 (2010) 4954

[31] Thomas DA. Music and the origins of language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 1995.
[32] Trainor LJ. The emotional origins of music. Physics of Life Reviews 2010;7(1):445, this issue.
[33] Weiss P, Taruskin R. Music in the western world. New York, NY: Schirmer, Macmillan; 1984.