Generalizing the Effect of Lyrics on Emotion Rating

What factors affect listeners’ emotional perception of music? Ali and Peynircioğlu (2006) conducted a series of experiments on the listener's emotional response to melodies and lyrics in songs. Here we present a pre-registered replication and extension of this line of research with new adapted stimuli and several musical covariates using the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI). Using a within-subjects design, participants (n = 104) were asked to rate the perceived emotions to unfamiliar happy, sad, calm, and angry songs with and without lyrics to model the extent to which each factor contributed to listener ratings. We failed to replicate the results of the original paper, but did find significant results in the opposite direction of several variables. Our extension of the analysis found evidence supporting the idea that emotional perception can and should be divorced from aspects associated with musical training. The mixed-effects model showed a significant effect of the emotional engagement subscale of the Gold-MSI above and beyond our replication analysis. While the results we detail in this research report conflict with the original findings, this conceptual replication and extension serve to highlight the importance of replicating findings reported within the music psychology literature.