Malcolm Budd

Bio: Malcolm Budd is an academic researcher from University College London. The author has contributed to research in topics: Music and emotion & Value (ethics). The author has an hindex of 14, co-authored 31 publications receiving 560 citations.

Wittgenstein's philosophy of psychology

Abstract: Preface 1. Introduction 2. Consciousness and the understanding of language 3. Sensations and sense-impressions 4. Seeing aspects 5. Images, internal speech, and calculation in the head 6. Thought and intention 7. Feelings, emotions, and the body List of abbreviations Notes Index

Values of Art: Pictures, Poetry, and Music

Abstract: Works of art can enrich our awareness of human experience, educate us, or even offer an emotional outlet, but how exactly should we assess their artistic value? British philosophy professor Malcolm Budd argues that although there are many varieties of artistic success, there is but a single value that ranges across the arts. Budd examines many of the issues involved in the appraisal and appreciation of specific art forms.

The acquaintance principle

Abstract: The Acquaintance Principle maintains that aesthetic knowledge must be acquired through first-hand experience of the object of knowledge and cannot be transmitted from person to person. This implies that aesthetic knowledge of an object cannot be acquired either from an accurate description of the non-aesthetic features of the object or from reliable testimony of its aesthetic character. The question I address is whether there is any sound argument in support of the Principle. 1 give scant consideration to the possibility of deriving knowledge from a non-aesthetic description. If this were to be a real possibility, it would certainly disprove the Acquaintance Principle, but its impossibility would not establish it. Furthermore, if the way knowledge were to be derived from a non-aesthetic description were through its enabling a person to imagine the object (as one might imagine music from a score), a defender of the Acquaintance Principle might simply deem imagining to be a form of first-hand experience. I focus on the possibility of acquiring aesthetic knowledge through reliable testimony because here there is a style of argument that, if correct, would rule out the possibility of knowledge of an item's aesthetic properties being transmitted to someone who lacks the requisite first-hand experience, and the manoeuvre of including imagining under the head of first-hand experience is not available. An argument of this kind is, I believe, the only possible way of establishing the Acquaintance Principle. I try to show that this style of argument fails and that the Acquaintance Principle should be rejected.

Communication of emotions in vocal expression and music performance: different channels, same code?

Abstract: Many authors have speculated about a close relationship between vocal expression of emotions and musical expression of emotions. but evidence bearing on this relationship has unfortunately been lacking. This review of 104 studies of vocal expression and 41 studies of music performance reveals similarities between the 2 channels concerning (a) the accuracy with which discrete emotions were communicated to listeners and (b) the emotion-specific patterns of acoustic cues used to communicate each emotion. The patterns are generally consistent with K. R. Scherer's (1986) theoretical predictions. The results can explain why music is perceived as expressive of emotion, and they are consistent with an evolutionary perspective on vocal expression of emotions. Discussion focuses on theoretical accounts and directions for future research.

Emotional responses to music: The need to consider underlying mechanisms

Abstract: Research indicates that people value music primarily because of the emotions it evokes. Yet, the notion of musical emotions remains controversial, and researchers have so far been unable to offer a satisfactory account of such emotions. We argue that the study of musical emotions has suffered from a neglect of underlying mechanisms. Specifically, researchers have studied musical emotions without regard to how they were evoked, or have assumed that the emotions must be based on the "default" mechanism for emotion induction, a cognitive appraisal. Here, we present a novel theoretical framework featuring six additional mechanisms through which music listening may induce emotions: (1) brain stem reflexes, (2) evaluative conditioning, (3) emotional contagion, (4) visual imagery, (5) episodic memory, and (6) musical expectancy. We propose that these mechanisms differ regarding such characteristics as their information focus, ontogenetic development, key brain regions, cultural impact, induction speed, degree of volitional influence, modularity, and dependence on musical structure. By synthesizing theory and findings from different domains, we are able to provide the first set of hypotheses that can help researchers to distinguish among the mechanisms. We show that failure to control for the underlying mechanism may lead to inconsistent or non-interpretable findings. Thus, we argue that the new framework may guide future research and help to resolve previous disagreements in the field. We conclude that music evokes emotions through mechanisms that are not unique to music, and that the study of musical emotions could benefit the emotion field as a whole by providing novel paradigms for emotion induction.

Emotions evoked by the sound of music: Characterization, classification, and measurement.

Abstract: One reason for the universal appeal of music lies in the emotional rewards that music offers to its listeners. But what makes these rewards so special? The authors addressed this question by progressively characterizing music-induced emotions in 4 interrelated studies. Studies 1 and 2 (n 354) were conducted to compile a list of music-relevant emotion terms and to study the frequency of both felt and perceived emotions across 5 groups of listeners with distinct music preferences. Emotional responses varied greatly according to musical genre and type of response (felt vs. perceived). Study 3 (n 801)—a field study carried out during a music festival—examined the structure of music-induced emotions via confirmatory factor analysis of emotion ratings, resulting in a 9-factorial model of music-induced emotions. Study 4 (n 238) replicated this model and found that it accounted for music-elicited emotions better than the basic emotion and dimensional emotion models. A domain-specific device to measure musically induced emotions is introduced—the Geneva Emotional Music Scale.

Music, Mood, and Marketing:

Abstract: That music affects human beings in various ways has probably been presumed as long as people have played music. Many marketing practitioners already accept this notion, given that music is increasi...

Emotional effects of music: production rules

Abstract: It is an ancient, and very pervasive, idea that music expresses emotion. Apart from the copious literature to this effect contributed by composers, musicologists, and philosophers, there is also solid empirical evidence from psychological research, reviewed in chapters of this book (e.g. Gabrielsson & Lindstrom, this volume; Juslin, this volume), that listeners often agree rather strongly about what type of emotion is expressed in a particular piece. It is also a pervasive belief that music can, at times, actually produce emotion in listeners. The distinction between perception and production is related to the distinction between cognitivism and emotivism proposed by philosophers in their analysis of emotion in music (e.g. Kivy 1989). Whereas 'emotivists' hold that music elicits real emotional responses in listeners, 'cognitivists' argue that music simply expresses or represents emotions. Our view is that it would be premature to prejudge the issue and that both positions may be perfectly appropriate depending on a number of factors outlined below. Our purpose in this chapter is to provide a formalization of the processes whereby music produces emotional effects in the listener that go beyond the cognitive inference of what the music can be said to express. In addition, we review the pertinent evidence to date and suggest ways in which future research might investigate these processes in a systematic fashion. We state at the outset that our discussion and the review of the available evidence are largely based on Western classical music, thereby restricting the generalizability of our claims to other kinds of music and other cultures. Our attempt at a formalization of emotional effects of music will consist in defining the affective changes that music is supposed to produce in the listener and to identify the determinants of the listening situation (features such as the musical structure of the piece listened to, the interpretation by the performer, relevant state and trait characteristics of the listener, and the respective context). An important issue for discussion will be the relative weighting of the different determinants and the type of their interaction in producing the affective outcome. We follow the senior author's attempt to define the emotional meaning of music in analogy to Buhler's Organon model of language, postulating composition, expression, perception, and production rules to model the different facets of emotional meaning (Scherer, 2000d). In this context, the term rule is used to denote a certain regularity or lawfulness of the effects discussed that can be expressed in concrete predictions or hypotheses. It is not excluded that these rules can be integrated into attempts at computational modelling of the underlying mechanisms (in fact, we consider this a highly desirable option), but we do not feel that the current state of the