Effects of breathing pathway and musical features on the processing of music induced emotions

Abstract

The effects of the breathing pathway (nasal vs. oral) on the processing of emotions are not yet well-understood although there is evidence of respiratory entrainment of local field potential activity in human limbic networks and the importance of nasal airflow in shaping this entrainment. In this study, we compared the degree of various emotions triggered by different pieces of music during oral breathing (OB) and nasal breathing (NB). In addition, correlation of different musical features with emotions was investigated. Our results showed that during NB, subjects found songs more relaxing (p = 0.00013) and happier (p = 0.069), and they felt more arousal states from songs (p = 0.036) when compared to the same songs during OB, while during OB subjects' average rating for more negative emotions was higher when compared to NB (NS). During both OB and NB, we observed that the consonance degree of songs had significantly high positive correlations with positive emotions (valence: p < 0.01, happy: p < 0.05, relaxed: NB: p < 0.05, OB: NS) and significantly high negative correlations with negative emotions (angry: p < 0.001, fear: p < 0.05, frustrated: NB: p < 0.001, OB: NS), while the higher complexity rate of songs had a positive correlation with negative emotions (fear: p < 0.01, sad < 0.05, frustrated: p < 0.05, angry: OB: p < 0.05, NB: NS) and negative correlations with positive emotions (happy: p < 0.05, relaxed: p < 0.05, valence: p < 0.05).