title: Emotional Dimensions of Music and Painting and their Interaction.
abstract: Usually it is accepted that human manifestations such as music or painting share a common artistic trait. However, very little is known about the genetic, behavioral, developmental and neurobiological basis of such a musical-pictorial "universal". In an attempt to approach commonalities and differences between the psychology of music and pictorial art in Experiment 1 we investigated the emotional dimensions valence and arousal in a large sample (N =156, M age = 21,44 years, SD = 3,89 years, range = 16-35 years) using a representative selection of musical and pictorial artistic stimuli. We found a stronger variability of valence and arousal with paintings and stronger effects of music on valence. In Experiment 2 (N =202, M age = 21,35 years, SD = 3,57 years, range = 16-35 years) we present first quantitative data on the interaction between the two artistic categories of stimuli on a behavioral level, again observing effects of pictorial art and music on valence and arousal. Furthermore in Experiment 2 we replicated a more pronounced effect of music on the valence of pictures, particularly on positive valence the results of the ANOVA showed an increase in group A2: F(1, 120) = 6.23, p < .05, in group C2: F(1, 120) = 89.03, p < .001, and a surprisingly emotionally negative influence of pleasant paintings on the positive valence of music, group A1: F(1, 127) = 19.69, p < .001. Despite the unresolved problem of non-representativeness of the stimuli and the sample selected these results may suggest superior emotional "power" of music over painting.
authors.affiliation: Universidad Complutense (Spain).
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Campos-Bueno
authors.affiliation: Conservatorio Profesional de Música de Alicante (Spain).
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: DeJuan-Ayala
authors.affiliation: Universitat Illes Balears (Spain).
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Montoya
authors.affiliation: University of Tübingen (Germany).
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Birbaumer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology*; D010151:Paintings / Q000523:psychology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: arousal; art universals; emotional responses; music; painting; valence