54 | Inkblot: The Undergraduate Journal of Psychology • Vol. 3 • September 2014
Perspectives on the Emotional Response to Consonance
and Dissonance in Music
Thalia Vrantsidis
Abstract
In music, the tendency for certain combinations of notes to sound either pleasant (i.e., consonant) or unpleasant
(i.e., dissonant) seems to be innate, universal, and uniquely human—provoking the question of why these intervals
are able to trigger these emotional reactions. Evidence will be reviewed here to explore several aspects of this question: (1) which neural circuits are involved; (2) what acoustic properties lead to emotional reactions; and (3) why
these preferences might have evolved. Brain imaging research shows that many emotion-processing areas respond
differentially to consonant and dissonant music. In addition, lesion studies have found specialized neural circuitry
involved in emotional responses to music. Studies of people with amusia, a pitch processing disorder, have identified the acoustic properties that determine a sound’s pleasantness—specifically, the harmonic series, rather than
beating as previously assumed, distinguishes consonant from dissonant intervals. Consonant intervals are also the
ones most prevalent in the harmonics of the human voice. This may explain why humans show a preference for
consonant intervals.
“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond
all we do here!”
– Dumbledore, in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s Stone (1997, p. 95)
Music has the power to make people feel. It inspires, it soothes, it makes us happy, and it makes us
cry. Music is used to emotionally enrich the vast experiences of life, from milestone celebrations and sporting
events, right down to personal listening (McDermott
& Hauser, 2005). How is it that a pattern of notes can
inspire such reactions? Part of the mystery of music is
that there does not seem to be an obvious evolutionary
benefit to it. Furthermore, it is not clear why certain
patterns of notes produce certain emotional responses:
why does Mozart sound beautiful, but a child smashing
the keys of a piano sound terrible? Two of the most
basic musical aspects that evoke emotional responses
are consonance and dissonance, which define combina-
tions of notes that sound either pleasant or unpleasant,
respectively. There is widespread agreement that certain intervals sound highly pleasant, for example, a perfect 5th (defined by a distance of 7 semitones1), while
others are regarded as highly unpleasant, especially the
tritone (defined by a distance of 6 semitones) (Krumhansl, 1990; Malmberg, 1918; McDermott, Lehr, & Oxenham, 2010). This paper will examine the neuroscientific research to explore the neural underpinnings of the
emotional reaction to consonance and dissonance, and
discuss the acoustical properties of the sounds which
trigger these responses. In addition, this research will
be connected to a theory of why emotional responses to
consonance and dissonance might have evolved.
Preferences for consonant over dissonant intervals are a promising starting point for understanding
human emotional reactions to music, as they appear to
have an evolutionary basis that is unique to humans.
Masataka (2006) showed that human infants as young
Inkblot: The Undergraduate Journal of Psychology • Vol. 3 • September 2014 | 55
as two days old show preferences for consonant over
dissonant music, indicating the preference is intrinsic
in nature. This occurred equally in children of deaf and
hearing parents, suggesting that these preferences are
formed independently of pre-natal exposure to music,
which presumably would differ with deaf and hearing
parents. In addition, cross-cultural studies have shown
similar preferences in many non-Western cultures (Butler & Daston, 1968; Fritz et al., 2009) although exceptions have been found in Indian listeners, perhaps due
to the increased exposure to dissonance as used in Indian classical music (Maher, 1976). These results suggest
that the human preference for consonance may be innate, although alterable by experience, and thus have an
evolutionary basis. Furthermore, although non-human
species such as birds and monkeys can be trained to
differentiate between consonant and dissonant sounds
(Hulse, Bernard, & Braaten, 1995; Izumi, 2000), humans are the only species known to show a preference
between interval types (McDermott & Hauser, 2004).
The emotional reactions to consonance and dissonance
are an innate and uniquely human response, and can
serve as a window into the human experience of music.
Review of Neuroscientific Literature
While the neuroscience of musical emotions is
still in its infancy, it has made considerable strides in
understanding the neural underpinnings of the emotional response to consonance and dissonance. Notably, it has been found that the brain regions which respond preferentially to either consonant or dissonant
music are also involved in processing other pleasant
or unpleasant emotional stimuli. For example, a study
conducted by Blood, Zatorre, Bermudez, and Evans
(1999) utilized positron emission tomography (PET) to
investigate brain responses to music with varying degrees of dissonance. Dissonance was positively correlated with activation in the parahippocampal gyrus, an
area previously shown to react to pictures with a negative emotional valence (Lane et al., 1997). Conversely,
consonance was positively correlated with activation of
the subgenual cingulate, frontopolar and orbitofrontal
cortices. These regions have also been shown to be involved in emotional processing; for example, lesions of
the subgenual cingulate and other ventral medial prefrontal cortex regions in monkeys have been shown to
impair recognition of emotional expressions (Hornak,
Rolls, & Wade, 1996).
A study utilizing functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) (Koelsch, Fritz, Müller, & Friederici,
2006) compared responses to joyful (i.e., mainly consonant) instrumental dance tunes and dissonant versions
of those same tunes. The consonant music increased
activation in the ventral striatum, containing the nucleus accumbens, which has been proposed as one of
the main structures involved in the motivational and
rewarding effects of positive stimuli (Cardinal, Parkinson, Hall, & Everitt, 2002; Salamone, Correa, Mingote,
& Weber, 2005). The ventral striatum has also been
shown to activate during the highly pleasurable experience of “chills” during music-listening (Blood & Zatorre, 2001). The dissonant music increased activation
in the amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and temporal poles—areas that are highly interconnected and form a core network involved in reactions to
aversive stimuli (see Koelsh et al., 2006, for a review). It
is important to note that the involvement of the amygdala during emotional processing of music is still debated. It does not seem to be confined to aversive stimuli:
Ball et al. (2007) showed no significant differences in
amygdala activation between dissonant and consonant
music, whereas Blood and Zatorre (2001) showed that
the amygdala was involved during pleasurable musicinduced chills.
Heart rate monitors and electroencephalography (EEG) have also been used to measure responses to
consonant and dissonant music. Sammler, Grigutsch,
Fritz, and Koelsch, (2007) found that, similar to unpleasant pictures, sounds, and films, dissonant music
(relative to consonant music) led to a decreased heart
rate, implying common underlying neural mechanisms
56 | Inkblot: The Undergraduate Journal of Psychology • Vol. 3 • September 2014
ing sound wave is experienced as having an unpleasant
sound quality known as roughness. Beating was generally thought to be more prevalent in dissonant than
consonant intervals and was thus used to explain the
dislike of dissonant intervals (although see Cousineau,
McDermott, & Peretz, 2012, for evidence that beating is
generally equally prevalent in both types of intervals).
A recent study tested this theory using people with
amusia, a disorder characterised by difficulty in pitch
processing (Cousineau, McDermott, & Peretz, 2012).
Amusics showed no difference in liking of consonant
and dissonant intervals; however, they still disliked
notes with beating. Furthermore, McDermott, Lehr,
and Oxenham (2010) found that, among individuals with normal auditory functioning, dislike of beating was not correlated with dislike of dissonant notes.
These studies thus demonstrate that beating is not able
to explain the preference of consonant over dissonant
intervals.
An alternative explanation exists based on the
harmonic series, specifically the harmonics series present in the human voice. Naturally produced pitches do
not contain a single frequency; instead, they are composed of a fundamental frequency accompanied by
several sound waves with frequencies that are integer
multiples of the fundamental frequency (i.e., harmonics; Cousineau, McDermott, & Peretz, 2012). Generally,
the fundamental frequency is loudest (the wave has the
largest amplitude), with each higher harmonic decreasing in volume (Smith, 2003). However, in ordinary human speech, certain harmonics tend to be louder, especially the third and fourth harmonics, due to properties
Acoustical Basis of Consonance and Dissonance of the human vocal tract (Schwartz, Howe, & Purves,
2003). Schwartz et al. describe how this creates additional amplitude peaks, at certain frequencies particular
Over the centuries, various theories have been
to the human voice. They then show that the relationadvanced for what properties of consonant versus disship of the peaks to the fundamental frequency corresonant sounds might trigger the preference for consponds to the frequency ratios of each of the 12 notes
sonant intervals (see Cousineau, McDermott, & Perof the chromatic scale compared to the tonic (the first
etz, 2012, for a review). The most common theory is
note). Furthermore, the relative amplitude of the peaks
based on “beating”, a phenomenon in which two waves
can be used to predict the consonance of each interval
of different frequencies are combined, and its resultin the processing of these stimulus types. They also
found an increase in frontal-midline (Fm) theta power
for consonant music, indicating greater coherence of
neural firing in certain population of neurons. This is
interpreted as reflecting activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which has been implicated elsewhere in processing pleasant music (Blood & Zatorre
2001). The ACC’s role in emotion is also supported by
its inputs from other key emotion-related areas, such as
the amygdala, hippocampus, and parahippocampal gyrus (Devinsky, Morrell, & Vogt, 1995).
Despite the differences in brain activation patterns across these studies, it is clear that the major brain
areas responsible for emotional processing are also being recruited for responding to consonant and dissonant music. In addition to these areas, Griffiths, Warren, Dean, and Howard (2004) may have discovered
a brain area specific to musical emotions, rather than
emotions in general. They reported a case study of a patient who, several months after a stroke, had selectively
lost all emotional responses to music, while retaining
his capacities for musical perception and emotional responses to non-musical stimuli. fMRI scans revealed
damages mainly to the left insula, which also extended
into the left frontal lobe and the left amygdala. This
damage overlaps with areas shown to be active in normal emotional processing of music (Blood & Zatorre,
2001), suggesting that some of these damaged areas
might form a specialized neural substrate for musical
emotions, separate from music perception and nonmusical emotional responses.
Inkblot: The Undergraduate Journal of Psychology • Vol. 3 • September 2014 | 57
in the chromatic scale, so that for larger peaks the corresponding interval is more consonant. Thus, the particular sounds that are considered consonant or dissonant
seem to stem from the unique harmonic properties of
the human voice.
Based on these results, Schwartz and colleagues
(2003) posited that the preference for consonance might
have developed due to its biological utility. One of the
primary tasks of the auditory system is to use sound information to identify biologically relevant stimuli. For
humans, one of the most pervasive and biologically relevant sources of sound is human speech. However, the
identity of a sound source is often ambiguous, so the
brain relies on probabilistic rules to help identify the
source—in this case, the fact that a certain pattern of
harmonics is predictive of the human voice. Schwartz
et al. thus proposed that a positive emotional reaction
to the human voice might have generalized onto anything which resembled that harmonic pattern, leading
to a preference for consonant intervals. This theory
can explain the near universality of consonance rankings, as the same pattern of harmonics is present in all
human speech, regardless of language (Schwartz et al.,
2003). It also explains why other species do not show
consonance preferences, since this harmonic pattern is
unique to the human voice. Note that this theory does
not specify whether the preferences are learned or are
innate; however, the aforementioned developmental research would support an innate preference, for which
Schwartz et al.’s theory could describe an evolutionary
benefit.
Conclusion
Neuroimaging studies have broadened our understanding of the neural underpinnings involved in
emotional responses to consonance and dissonance.
These emotional responses generally involve the same
neural circuitry that reacts to other pleasant and unpleasant stimuli. For consonance, this includes the subgenual and anterior cingulate cortex, the frontopolar
and orbitofrontal cortex, the ventral striatum, and potentially the amygdala. For dissonance, it involves the
parahippocampal gyrus, hippocampus, and temporal
poles, and amygdala. The case study of a patient with
lesions to the insula, amygdala, and frontal lobe implies
that, within these regions, there is specific area for processing musical emotions in particular.
Furthermore, studies of amusic individuals have
revealed that the preference for consonance over dissonance does not, as previously thought, stem from the
acoustical phenomenon of beating. Instead, statistical
analyses suggest that it is specifically based on the similarity of consonant intervals to the harmonics of the
human voice. This led Schwartz et al. (2003) to propose that a preference for the human voice provides a
plausible explanation for the widespread and uniquely
human preference for consonance over dissonance.
Future Research
One outstanding question which could be addressed by future studies is the degree to which innate
emotional reactions to consonance and dissonance can
be altered through experience, as was suggested by the
finding that Indian listeners did not show the common
pattern of consonance preferences (Maher, 1976). Future research could confirm this explanation by experimentally manipulating participants’ exposure to consonance and dissonance.
Mull (1957) addressed this to some extent,
showing that repeated exposure to dissonant music did
in fact increase participants’ liking of it; however, it is
possible that listeners did not actually enjoy the dissonance more, but were simply more able to focus on
and appreciate the other aspects of the music. The use
of more controlled stimuli along with neuroimaging
could address this question more thoroughly. As a possible experiment, repeated listening over several days
or weeks could be used to induce familiarity to either
dissonant music or consonant music. Then single dissonant or consonant intervals could be played for the
58 | Inkblot: The Undergraduate Journal of Psychology • Vol. 3 • September 2014
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Footnotes
A semitone is the smallest interval between notes used
in ordinary musical scales (equivalent to the interval
between a white key and an adjacent black key on a piano, or between a C and C#).
1