Sadness is generally seen as a negative emotion, a response to distressing and adverse
situations. In an aesthetic context, however, sadness is often associated with some degree …

How do people feel when they experience bittersweet events comprised of pleasant and
unpleasant aspects (eg, good news accompanied by bad)? Just as acids immediately …

In modern societies, cultural change seems ceaseless. The flux of fashion is especially
obvious for popular music. While much has been written about the origin and evolution of …

In Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance (2nd edition), the authors consider
music on a broad scale, from its beginning as an acoustical signal to its different …

We report here trends in the usage of “mood” words, that is, words carrying emotional
content, in 20th century English language books, using the data set provided by Google that …

Popular music offers a rich source of data that provides insights into long-term cultural
evolutionary dynamics. One major trend in popular music, as well as other cultural products …

Psychology is crucial for understanding human history. When aggregated, changes in the
psychology of individuals–in the intensity of social trust, parental care, or intellectual …

Creativity and the Performing Artist: Behind the Mask synthesizes and integrates research in
the field of creativity and the performing arts. Within the performing arts there are multiple …

The current paper offers a model of time-varying music engagement, defined as changes in
curiosity, attention and positive valence, as music unfolds over time. First, we present …

Song lyrics are rich in meaning. In recent years, the lyrical content of popular songs has
been used as an index of culture's shifting norms, affect, and values. One particular, newly …