Investigating Musical Emotions in People with Unilateral Brain Damage

The study under discussion sought to investigate the hemispheric laterality of musical emotions: Is one hemisphere of the brain preferentially involved in recognizing emotions in music? The authors took a neuropsychological approach to answer this question by studying emotional judgments of music in people with brain damage to either hemisphere. Their results indicated that individuals with left hemisphere damage were significantly impaired in recognizing musical emotions as compared to healthy comparison participants. In contrast, individuals with right hemisphere damage were not impaired at identifying emotions in music, but rated the perceived intensity of the emotions lower for sadness and fear (as compared to joy and serenity). Their work suggests that the identification of emotions in music and the perceived intensity of the emotions expressed may rely on different hemispheres of the brain.