Uncertain Emotion Discrimination Differences Between Musicians and Non-musicians Is Determined by Fine Structure Association: Hilbert Transform Psychophysics

Humans perceive musical sound as a complex phenomenon, which is known to induce an emotional response. The cues used to perceive emotion in music have not been unequivocally elucidated. Here, we sought to identify the attributes of sound that confer an emotion to music and determine if professional musicians have different musical emotion perception than non-musicians. The objective was to determine which sound cues are used to resolve emotional signals. Happy or sad classical music excerpts modified in fine structure or envelope conveying different degrees of emotional certainty were presented. Certainty was determined by identification of the emotional characteristic presented during a forced-choice discrimination task. Participants were categorized as good or poor performers ( n = 32, age 21.16 ± 2.59 SD) and in a separate group as musicians in the first or last year of music education at a conservatory ( n = 32, age 21.97 ± 2.42). We found that temporal fine structure information is essential for correct emotional identification. Non-musicians used less fine structure information to discriminate emotion in music compared with musicians. The present psychophysical experiments revealed what cues are used to resolve emotional signals and how they differ between non-musicians and musically educated individuals.