Emotional experience of music by psychiatric patients compared with normal subjects

Psychiatric patients (n= 107) and normal subjects (n= 100) were exposed to seven newly composed pieces of music orchestrated for a small symphony orchestra. The patients were divided into seven subgroups: schizophrenic, depressive and manic psychosis; obsessive, depressive, anxiety and hysterical neurosis. All subjects rated the music on semantic differential scales describing three factors of emotional experience: tension-relaxation, gaiety-gloom and attraction-repulsion. The ratings by patients in the different groups were compared with those by the normal subjects. Expressiveness in music was found to be communicated to patients in the same relative way as to normals. However, in the various diagnostic groups, several marked differences in experience were demonstrated. The main findings were that schizophrenic psychotics experienced the music as more attractive, while depressive and anxiety neurotics experienced it as less attractive, than normals. Depressive and manic psychotics experienced the music as less gay. Obsessive neurotics seem to be more sensitive to tension in music than normals.