Carraturo et al. synthesized a wide array of psychological and neuroscientific findings on major-minor mode perception, offering a comprehensive overview of how these musical structures shape emotional responses. While highlighting the complexity of this phenomenon and acknowledging the interplay between psychoacoustic features, individual differences, and culture, they underscore how the major-minor dichotomy has become one of the main frameworks for studying musical emotions, particularly in its association with happiness and sadness. This emphasis reflects both historical tendencies in Western tonal music and its use in experimental implementations, linking major modes with positive affect and minor modes with negative affect. However, and interestingly, this work raises the question of whether this binary classification fully captures the nuances of emotional responses to music. We here address this issue through three key points: (1) potential confounds and learned associations, (2) the impact of task design, and (3) the interpretation of neural correlates. This will lead to broader considerations about how musical emotions are conceptualized and studied.
I gotta feeling: Beyond major and minor dichotomy in musicemotions. Comment on “The major-minor mode dichotomy inmusic perception” by Giulio Carraturo, Victor Pando-Naude,Marco Costa, Peter Vuust, Leonardo Bonetti, Elvira Brattico
