A developmental study of the affective value of tempo and mode in music

Do children use the same properties as adults in determining whether music sounds happy or sad? We addressed this question with a set of 32 excerpts ( 16 happy and 16 sad) taken from pre-existing music. The tempo (i.e. the num ber of beats per minute) and the mode (i.e. the specific subset of pitches used to write a given musical excerpt) of these excerpts were modified inde pendently and jointly in order to measure their effects on happy-sad judgme nts. Adults and children from 3 to 8 years old were required to judge wheth er the excerpts were happy or sad. The results show that as adults, 6-8-yea r-old children are affected by mode and tempo manipulations. In contrast, 5 -year-olds' responses are only affected by a change of tempo. The youngest children (3-4-year-olds) failed to distinguish the happy from the sad tone of the music above chance. The results indicate that tempo is mastered earl ier than mode to infer the emotional tone conveyed by music. (C) 2001 Elsev ier Science B.V. All rights reserved.