Simpson 1

Matthew Simpson
Mrs. DeBock
English 4
18 February, 2016
Essential Question: How can music affect the different emotions in someone?
Thesis Statement: Music can affect the different emotions, like happiness, in someone.
Refined Thesis Statement: People can try listening to different types of music to discover various
emotions.
Annotated Bibliography
Aub, William, Peretz, Isabelle, Armony, Jorge L. The Effects of Emotion on Memory and
Vocalisations Memory 21.8 (2013): 981-990. Psychology and Behavioral
Sciences collection. Web.
The article goes into detail of an experiment to witness how seventy-two different music, tempo, and
mode, major or minor, affected different test subjects. The subjects jotted down weather they felt
happiness, fear, sadness, or if they felt no emotion at all. The article then displays the final results of the
experiment and what each test subjects emotion was after listening to the various pieces of music. The
authors then conducted a second experiment where fifty-six new volunteers were conducted to the same
experiment the original seventy-two were, however, the musical clips were modified so that it contained
the same number of events on average across emotional categories. I chose this article because of the
experiment the authors conducted.

Jourdain, Robert. Music, the brain, and Ecstsy: How Music Captures our Imagination. New York:
W Morrow, 1997. Print.
The book I chose differs from the articles because it did not have any experiments conducted, rather
the book goes into extensive detail on how someone is pulled into a dream state where then emotions can
run wild from Tone, Melody, Harmony, Rhythm, Composition, Performance, Listening, Understanding,

Simpson 2
then finally to Ecstasy. Each topic, excluding the final one, discuss how someone can be pulled into their
dream state in various ways including the melody and beat of the song, the even how ones performance
can leave someone in a trance. The final topic then explains what different people would feel in this
trance and how they react to it depending on their condition. I chose this book because of how it
explains
how someone can be pulled out of reality and what someone feels when they do escape reality.

Thoma, Myriam V., Ryf, Stefan, Mohiyeddini, Changiz, Ehlert, Ulrike, Nater, Urs M. Emotion
Regulation Through Listening to Music in Everyday Situations. Cognition & Emotion
26.3 (2012) : 550-560. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web.
Similar to the previous article, the authors, as well conducted a similar experiment, however
slightly different in several ways. The authors experimented with forty-seven volunteers and instead of
using general pieces of music; the authors used specific tracks in order to stimulate the volunteers
emotions. The authors then conducted the same experiment two more times, this time experimenting on
twenty-five and eighty-nine volunteers respectively. After the experiment has concluded the authors
posted their results which included what emotion the volunteers experienced with the inclusion of
different emotions like arousal and stress. The authors then go into detail about their results including
how outside sources effected the volunteers response in testing and how the volunteers emotions also
effected their results. I chose this article because of its experiment that provides different information
from the other article.