Does Music Change the Way We Perceive Art?
Abby Goldstein, Untitled 1: This image is part of the exhibition "Music as Image and Metaphor", which was the starting point for this study. (Image: Abby Goldstein, Untitled 1, 2019, pigment and matte dispersion on paper, 22” x 30” // Copyright: Abby Goldstein // Image courtesy of Kentler International Drawing Space, The Kentler Flatfiles, Brooklyn, NY, USA)
When music and visual art come together, we are moved by the combination—whether in film, opera, or dance. A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, has now investigated how the combination of music and images influences the aesthetic perception of art, and what role the deliberate correspondence between auditory and visual elements plays in this. The results of the study have recently been published in the journal Scientific Reports as part of a collection of papers on neuroaesthetics compiled by Emily Cross (ETH Zurich).
The research team conducted the study online in collaboration with the Kentler International Drawing Space (Brooklyn, New York, USA). The starting point was the exhibition “Music as Image and Metaphor.” It features 41 drawings from the Kentler collection, accompanied by pieces of music specifically composed in relation to the images. One of the curators noticed that visitors were spending more time in the exhibition than usual. He wondered if the musical accompaniment might be the reason and approached former MPIEA researcher Lauren Fink with the suggestions for a scientific study to further explore this observation.
The researchers broadened the approach to include the question of whether the deliberate combination of music and visuals particularly influences the aesthetic experience, or whether a random pairing can achieve similar effects. The more than 200 participants in the study were presented with 16 works in different modalities. These included music-only pieces, images without any musical accompaniment, intentional audiovisual pairings, and random audiovisual pairings. The duration of each viewing was used as an indicator of aesthetic interest. In addition, after each piece, participants were asked to report on their subjective experience, such as the feeling of being moved.
“We found that the participants spent the longest time with the music-only pieces, followed by the combined audiovisual pairings, and finally the images without music. However, they reported the strongest emotional effect from the audiovisual combinations,” explains first author Lauren Fink, adding: “Surprisingly, the type of combination had no effect on aesthetic evaluations: Regardless of whether the audiovisual pairing was intentional or random, participants experienced the works similarly.”
Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann, Director of the Department of Music at the MPIEA and senior author of the study, explains further: “It is also noteworthy that there was no direct correlation between the time spent and the aesthetic preferences—an indication that music enriches the emotional depth of art perception, but does not necessarily change its aesthetic evaluation.”
These results show that the targeted pairing of music and images can certainly improve the perceived correspondence, but does not have a direct impact on aesthetic preferences or on how long someone engages with a work of art. The study thus opens up a new perspective on the complex role that music and visual art play together in the aesthetic experience.
Publication:
Fink, L., Fiehn, H., & Wald-Fuhrmann, M. (2024). The Role of Audiovisual Congruence in Aesthetic Appreciation of Contemporary Music and Visual Art. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-71399-y
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