Effect of Facial Expressions and Music on Felt and Perceived Emotions

The purpose of this study was to examine whether or not there was a difference between felt emotion and perceived emotion upon viewing posed facial expressions of four basic emotions matched and mismatched, with a priori music categorically perceived to reflect the same four basic emotions. Fifty college students were given a questionnaire and then asked to view eight slides of posed facial expressions conveying four basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, fearful). The facial expressions were matched and mismatched with musical excerpts of either the same or different emotional quality. Participants were given two scales on which six emotions (the four selected and the two distracters) were listed (happy, sad, fearful, angry, serene, and emphatic). The first scale asked participants to rate how strongly they felt after viewing the slide, and the second scale asked participants to rate how strongly they perceived the emotional quality of the slide. Next to each emotion, there was a 10 centimeter line on which participants placed a mark closest to how they felt for each emotion listed (Scale 1), and how strongly they perceived each emotion (Scale2). The results show that there is a difference between felt and perceived emotions, there is a difference between emotion scores for the matched facial expressions and music and the non-matched facial expressions and music, and there is a difference between felt and perceived targeted emotion scores (happy, sad, fearful, angry) and distracters (serene and emphatic).