It has been shown that emotion, including musical emotion, is most simply illustrated by a two-dimensional model spanned by valence and arousal level. This model also suggest that the same space is spanned by cheerfulness and tension dimensions. It is known that tonality, speed, and register affect the cheerfulness of music. However, it has not been quantitatively defined how these factors determine cheerfulness. In the present study, three experiments were conducted to determine how the tonality (major or minor), speed, and performed register vary the cheerfulness. In the first experiment, four (ascending and descending major, ascending and descending minor) scales and two short melodies were used as stimuli. In the second experiment, ascending major scales performed in different registers were used. In the last experiment, ascending major scales performed in various speeds were used. In each experiment, listeners compared and rated the cheerfulness in each pair of stimuli. The results of multidimensional scaling showed that different cheerfulness scales constructed by each factor can be combined into a single onedimensional scale. In the present study, performed register was evaluated as the centroid for the overall-term spectrum, and was shown in ERB-rate scale. The results showed that the degree of cheerfulness increased proportionally as the register shown in ERB-rate increased. It is estimated that the effect of tonality corresponds to the centroid shift of 4 ERB-rate, and doubling the speed corresponds to the increase of the controid in 3.5 ERBrate.
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