| Summary: | The thesis reports cross-cultural studies in Egypt and Northern Ireland investigating the relationship between music and emotion, including both felt and expressed emotions, and focusing on the emotions happiness, sadness and love. The aim of the research was to test the extent to which certain types of musical features are universally related to certain emotional reactions or certain emotional expressions. In the first study, participants in Belfast and Cairo took part in a task where they heard excerpts from pieces from both Western-European and Arabic traditions associated with happiness, sadness and love in each tradition. There were three conditions in the study, each with six different instrumental excerpts (Western Love, Western Happy, Western Sad, Arabic Love, Arabic Happy, Arabic Sad). Jn the second study, again using a computerised task, the Belfast and Cairo participants heard songs from Western-European classical, Arabic (tarab and Sufi) and Indian raga traditions thought to induce strong emotional responses. There were three conditions in the study, each with four different excerpts (Western-European classical, tarab, Sufi and Indian raga). Participants were assigned to one of the three conditions, and, after hearing each excerpt, they reported the emotions they felt while hearing the songs (using discrete and dimensional measures). In both studies, musicians and non-musicians were involved to account for the effect of musical training on felt and expressed emotions. It was predicted that certain musical features would express and cause particular emotions, that a relationship also exists between felt and expressed emotions, and that familiarity would be a major factor in determining felt and expressed emotions. It was also hypothesised that certain musical features can cause intense reactions to music, causing people to 'feel moved.' It was predicted that culture would influence these relationships, although some relationships may be prevalent despite participants having different cultural backgrounds.
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