2 - PSYCHOLOGY AND SOUNDTRACKS

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PSYCHOLOGY AND SOUNDTRACKS

2.1. Psychological literature on film music

In the last few years some research on background music has however being carried.
The work of Marshall and Cohen (1988) is among the first studies on this subject. These researchers investigated the effects of musical soundtracks on attitudes toward geometrical figures in a short animated video.
The visual material they used was a two-minute abstract animation originally created and used by Heider and Simmel (1944) for their experiments on apparent behavior.
The video featured three geometrical figures (a large triangle, a small triangle and a circle), which moved and interacted with each other.
Results showed that the relations among the moving figures elicited specific attributions of personality and interpretations that were predictable and shared by almost of viewers.
In their research, Marshall and Cohen paired the film with two different soundtracks (allegro vs. adagio). Analysis showed that the soundtracks altered semantic differential ratings of the video. Some of the relations were direct while some others were inverse. This suggested that the judgments on the overall audiovisual combination depend upon a complex interaction of the film and music material. Authors suggested that such interaction might be affected by the appropriateness of the pairing of music and film (see also paragraph 2.4).

Sirius and Clarke (1993) also used computer generated moving images (i.e. animations of 3D geometrical figures) associated with music to investigate the interaction of different visual and musical features. Participants rated the stimuli on semantic differential scale. Results showed that the effects of music on the rating of visual images were essentially additive, and no significant interaction by particular music excerpts and specific animated images took place. It is possible that the reason why specific audiovisual combination failed to acquire complex semantic characteristics may be attributed to the images used in this particular experiment, which were maybe too basic.
Lipscomb and Kendall (1994) investigated the relationship between the musical soundtrack and visual images in a motion-picture viewing experience.
Five different scenes along with their composer-intended musical scores were selected. Then each soundtrack was paired with every scene, for a total of 5*5=25 combinations. Participants were asked to pick the musical score that best fit the scene.
Results indicated that, for each video excerpt, the majority of people identified the composer-intended musical score as the best fit.

Bullerjam and Güldenring (1994) conducted a research on movie style perception using qualitative content analysis. They created a custom-made experimental film that was meant to resemble a part of a real motion picture that could be interpreted in different ways. Then music composers provided three different soundtracks for the film: one in the style of a thriller, one melodramatic, and one other indefinite style.
In the experiment, participants answered to open-ended questions to provide information the history of the film and the outcome of the events. Results indicated that film music had a significant effect in influencing the perceived genre of the film.
Music has also proved itself to be effective in modulating psychophysiological responses to emotion-laden films.

Thayer and Levenson (1983) found that film soundtracks of different genres (“thriller” vs. “documentary”) respectively increased and decreased cardiovascular and electro-dermal responses in participants viewing a stressful film about industrial safety and related accidents.

Thompson, Russo, and Sinclair (1984) have investigated the effects of underscoring on the perception of closure in events conducting three experiments.
In a first experiment a short animated episode was judged to end with greater closure if background music was strongly closed than if it was weakly closed. This influence of underscoring was found to be implicit as, when asked to justify their judgments, participants referred only to qualities of the visual stimuli they were exposed to.
A second experiment investigated the effect of soundtrack in a commercial motion picture. Ratings of perceived closure were obtained for three conditions: music only, film only, film and background music. Again, music influenced perceived closure in films, even though the visual information had a stronger impact than auditory information.
When discussing musical closure, it is assumed that expectations are indeed influenced by the degree of closure. If no closure occurs, listeners are likely to expect a continuation of the ongoing soundtrack.
On the other hand, musical closure does not necessarily imply the end of the piece of music. On this account, Hopkins (1990) suggests that a moderate degree of closure instead prepares the listener for something else; it creates in the listener the expectation that there will be something new. Only a very high degree of closure in music will instead create the expectation of silence, the expectation that there will be no continuation whatsoever.

Boltz, Shulkind and Kantra (1991) investigated the role of background music in remembering a series of filmed episodes. For each episode background music was either congruent or incongruent with the affect of the episode’s outcome. An additional independent variable was how the music was used in the film.
In the accompaniment condition, music was presented simultaneously with the key scene. In the foreshadowing condition, music was introduced before time in a scene that preceded the conclusion. This technique is generally used in filmmaking to prepare the audience for a critical upcoming event and to generate expectancies of what is going to happen next. When participants were asked to recall the film they had seen, results showed that mood-incongruent combinations led to better memory performances than mood-congruent combinations.
However this only happened in conditions where mood-incongruent music foreshadowed the filmed scene. When music instead accompanied the crucial sequence, memory performances were significantly better in mood-congruent combinations.
These findings suggest that effects of music involve selective-attention mechanisms, and that only mood-related features of the auditory material direct attention towards corresponding aspects of the visual stimuli.
These mood-related dimensions are typically described in terms of degree of activity level (i.e. arousal) and pleasantness/unpleasantness of the emotion (Osgood, 1969; Russell, 1980)

2.2 Notes from advertising and marketing research

The relationship between music, mood, and influence has been investigated with research carried on also in the field of advertising and marketing, where the potential of music to influence consumer behavior was inspected (Hargraves and North, 1997).
Both advertisers and researchers agree that the effect of music in advertising reception can be explained in terms of attention-gaining value (Kellaris, Cox, and Cox, 1993), music-advertisement congruency (MacInnis and Park, 1991) and mood/affect impact (Middlestadt, Fishbein, and Chan, 1994).
Moreover, the role of affect and emotion in psychological mechanisms such as decision-making, forming judgments, and processing messages has been widely recognized (Crozier, 1997).

2.3 Shaping relations with music: The associationist approach

Associationism in psychology is characterized as a reductionist and connectionist approach to the understanding of cognitive processes. The basic theory is that, when one idea is commonly accompanied by another, both ideas can independently evoke each other. Coming down to music listening, this notion predicts that a particular music, which has been previously matched with a particular experience, is able to evoke a representation of this experience when used during the film.
In contemporary psychology, the associationist paradigm is reflected in theories of spreading activation, connectionist models, and semantic networks which seem to deal with just about any cognitive process (Anderson and Bower, 1973; Barucha, 1987). An example can be the research conducted by Bower (1981). People exposed to sad classical music produced word associations and TAT (Thematic Apperception Test) scores that were significantly sadder that those produced by people exposed to happier soundtracks.
Meyer (1956) stated that music is able to arise a connotative complex, consisting of many overlapping associations, perhaps more easily characterized by what it excludes rather that what is included.
Thus, some of the many associations that are brought in mind by a musical background overlap with associations brought in mind by the film. This overlap may allow a particular portion of the film to be interpreted in terms of the entire connotative complex.
Also within the neo-associationist tradition is the semantic differential (Osgood, Suci, Tannenbaum, 1957), a technique for measuring emotional and connotative meaning.

2.4 The appropriateness of underscoring: The “fit” construct

Different studies (Meyer, 1956) suggest that both vocal and instrumental music are able to convey meanings that are widely shared across listeners.

Gundlach (1935) states that music can elicit a fairly uniform characterization in audiences solely through factors resident within the musical structure itself.

Rigg (1937) finds that most listeners, regardless of musical training, were able to match unfamiliar musical compositions with their respective intended meaning. This match was overlapping to the intention of the composer with an overall inter-rater agreement of 70%.

Music seems to have a special ability to convey thoughts, meanings and feelings in an abstract way.

On this particular aspect, Gurney (1880) wrote:

“The power of music to suggest external objects and events and intellectual conceptions (…) may take place in two ways. First the actual sounds and motion of the music may perceptibly resemble actual sounds and motions of other things (…) The second way in which images of external facts may be suggested by music is by general qualities (…) The same calm and steady musical flow which might suggest a quiet succession of waves has naturally an expression of tranquility corresponding to the same idea”.

On the basis of such structural analogy between musical experience and visual experience, we propose a “music/film congruency” construct, which could be defined as the extent to which a musical soundtrack evokes meanings and feelings correspondent and congruent to the ones delivered by the film scene. This “music/film congruency” construct we used in the present research will be defined fit.

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