The aim of this research was to find out whether a history of musical education could predict verbal fluency, when corrected for musical skills. Because the performance on verbal fluency tasks...Show moreThe aim of this research was to find out whether a history of musical education could predict verbal fluency, when corrected for musical skills. Because the performance on verbal fluency tasks seems to correlate with musical training (Silvia et al., 2016; Fennell et al., 2020; Zuk et al., 2014), this researched focused on proving the hypothesis that people who have had musical education perform better on verbal fluency tasks. Verbal fluency was measured by the performance on a phonetic verbal fluency task that was delivered digitally. Musical skills were measured by the performance on the Swedish Musical Discrimination Task (SMDT) (Ullén et al., 2014). Participants who indicated on the Musical Coping and Responsivity Scale (Ridell Di Lorenzo & Schaeffer, 2021) that they had at least 6 years of continuous musical education and were currently practicing an instrument were considered having a history of musical education. 127 participants (N = 127) completed the research. Of these, 98 participants did not have a history of musical education and 29 did. Verbal fluency was found to correlate significantly with the scores on the SMDT and with the years of musical education. Furthermore, musical skills were a predictor of verbal fluency, but having a history of musical education was not. When corrected for musical skills, a history of musical education could not predict verbal fluency.Show less
The scientific community is trying uncover and understand the underlying mechanisms of music, movement and social cognition. As an attempt to do so, this thesis proposes an interactive model that...Show moreThe scientific community is trying uncover and understand the underlying mechanisms of music, movement and social cognition. As an attempt to do so, this thesis proposes an interactive model that hypothesizes a relationship between tapping ability and interpersonal synchrony, moderated by musicality and interpersonal synchrony. Furthermore, this study predicts that there is a relationship between these two moderators as well and that musicality predicts empathic perspective-taking. A sample of 209 participants was recruited to take part in an online experiment that included questionnaires on empathy and music, as well as a tapping task in which participants tapped along to music with another person on the screen and rated their feelings of synchrony with them. The results showed that even though the interaction of tapping ability and musicality and that of tapping ability and empathic perspective-taking were not significant, the full model did turn out to be significant. In addition, musicality significantly predicted the scores on empathic perspective-taking. These results strengthen the existing literature on the socially adaptive effects of synchrony and the connection between the mechanisms present in movement to music and empathic abilities. It is concluded that the knowledge from this study can be applied to treatment and non-clinical populations, but that more research is needed to uncover the underlying mechanisms of music, movement and social cognition by exploring different interaction models.Show less
Emotion is one of the most important reasons why people listen to music. The present study looked at how perceived and felt emotions are elicited by music by measuring valence and arousal, and the...Show moreEmotion is one of the most important reasons why people listen to music. The present study looked at how perceived and felt emotions are elicited by music by measuring valence and arousal, and the effect of tempo on this ratings. The role of empathy in the relationship between perceived and felt emotions was also investigated. 153 participants were recruited and asked to listen to positive, neutral, and negative music pieces by completing a tapping task. The results showed that there is an association between tempo and perceived and felt emotions and that there are differences between perceived and felt emotions for positive, neutral, and negative music pieces. Furthermore, it was shown that empathy acts a moderator for the differences between perceived and felt emotions. In this way, how different emotions are evoked by music was studied and the role of empathy in this mechanism. This has important implications for understanding how emotions are used during social interactions and can be helpful for the development of therapeutic approaches that make use of music.Show less
Generating emotional brand attachment is a central concern in the current marketing industry. Existing research has shown the high relevance of emotions in consumer–brand relationships. We propose...Show moreGenerating emotional brand attachment is a central concern in the current marketing industry. Existing research has shown the high relevance of emotions in consumer–brand relationships. We propose that the emotion awe makes people feel connected to brands, because awe causes people to feel interconnected. The aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between music, awe and brand attachment. Participants in this online study (N = 199) were randomly divided into four conditions: a music condition, a recall condition, a music and recall condition, and a control condition. We hypothesized that listening to music would induce awe, which in turn would affect brand attachment. Results showed that music did not have a significant effect on awe, but recalling an experience of awe did. Furthermore, awe had a significant effect on brand attachment. Finally, the personality trait Openness to Experience predicted the experience of awe. The implications for these findings, directions for future research and limitations of the current research are discussed.Show less
Research master thesis | African Studies (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis aims to explore African identity through a popular culture lens. It uses a comparative approach between Morocco and Senegal and focuses on three main components of popular culture:...Show moreThis thesis aims to explore African identity through a popular culture lens. It uses a comparative approach between Morocco and Senegal and focuses on three main components of popular culture: football, music and fashion. This research examines how the latter may or not promote a shared African identity between Morocco and Senegal. This thesis is based on an ethnographic study in Ifrane, Rabat and Essaouira in Morocco and Dakar in Senegal. It relies heavily on qualitative data resulting from seven month’s fieldwork in both countries. The research explores African identity through the stories of the people directly concerned, Africans. In the first instance, and as a way of understanding one population segment – the youth – semi-structured interviews were conducted with Moroccan students from Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, which demonstrated the influence of some aspects of popular culture, but also of education in shaping their identities as Africans. In the same measure, interviews were also conducted with Senegalese students from University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar. Furthermore, this research also relies on interviews with older generations in both Morocco and Senegal, as well as participant observations by attending events related to music, fashion and football. Part of the research also relies on surveys conducted during the African Cup of Nations. This thesis showcases how popular culture promotes a shared African identity between Morocco and Senegal by, first, promoting African unity illustrated by football games, second, by promoting African history, through a music - Gnawa - that has traveled from Sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa to recall their stories, and third, by promoting African roots, highlighted by Moroccan young designers who use fashion as a tool to assert their African identity. Finally, this research aims to contribute to a larger academic debate on the separation of North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, by outlining popular culture as an important factor when studying and comparing the latter. Therefore, on a academic level, it aims to raise awareness with regards to paying more attention to North Africa as part of the African continent - thus part of African studies; and second, on a social level, as a way of promoting African identity and unity through the power of popular culture.Show less
This thesis aims to contribute to the conversation started with the aesthetic and emotional turn in IR by adding a sonic lense to the discipline of IR. It addresses the discipline’s structural...Show moreThis thesis aims to contribute to the conversation started with the aesthetic and emotional turn in IR by adding a sonic lense to the discipline of IR. It addresses the discipline’s structural epistemic violence, and proposes a new approach that focuses on healing, in line with Daoist IR, where resonance and the in-between space in the international are the space of the political. However, with a holistic world-view, nothing can be detached from its spirituality. It is therefore that I hope for a third turn in IR: the spiritual turn.Show less
This thesis compiles views on music and dance scattered throughout the Pāli Canon and its commentaries. It starts with negative views, widely considered the most characteristic, and lists the...Show moreThis thesis compiles views on music and dance scattered throughout the Pāli Canon and its commentaries. It starts with negative views, widely considered the most characteristic, and lists the spiritual, emotional and even social reasons given in the early texts for the avoidance of musical art forms. The rest of the work addresses less known, wholesome uses of music: ‘devotional’ compositions, apparently as old as the oldest strata of the Pāli Canon (according to the texts themselves, many eons older), and a handful of episodes where advanced practitioners are led to Nirvana by the lyrics of peasant songs. The last chapter is dedicated to two meditational states that seem to involve perceptions of beauty, the ‘beautiful-liberation’ (subha-vimokkha) and the samādhi of divine sounds of the Mahāli Sutta. The conclusion argues that a more balanced image of the early Buddhist approach to art is needed to make sense of modern Buddhism and its embrace of a perhaps not so foreign ‘Romantic’ aestheticism.Show less
This thesis focuses on African American hip-hop music. How does this music form produce a connection between black people and how does it create a community? Hip-hop music has a performative...Show moreThis thesis focuses on African American hip-hop music. How does this music form produce a connection between black people and how does it create a community? Hip-hop music has a performative function in producing a collective identity based on race, and now that new generations of African Americans are growing up in a world steeped in hip-hop culture, it is important to try and understand this performativity. How does hip-hop music produce a construct of blackness? And how is this performative function complicated by the many contradictions in hip-hop: commercial hip-hop balances on a fine line between emancipating African Americans and reproducing negative stereotypes of African Americans.Show less
Rhythm is an organizational device in language and in music. In both domains, rhythm helps to structure the sound stream (speech or music), by grouping auditory events, that is, sounds and pauses,...Show moreRhythm is an organizational device in language and in music. In both domains, rhythm helps to structure the sound stream (speech or music), by grouping auditory events, that is, sounds and pauses, into meaningful units together in a hierarchical manner. In language, speech rhythm is of importance because it helps speech segmentation and intelligibility and it belongs to the linguistic inventory of a language. Mastering the rhythmic properties of a language is just as important as mastering any relevant linguistic information. When learning a second language (L2), together with its vocabulary and grammar, second language learners must also master a set of rhythmic properties that are either in partial or in complete overlap with their first language or that are completely different. This is the case because languages of the world diverge in terms of their use of rhyhtmic properties and metric preferences. Previous research has described the world' s languages as being stress-timed, syllable-timed or mora-timed languages. Stress-timed languages, from which English is the exemplary item, have the metric foot as their unit of speech perception and production. The metric foot is a combination of one stressed syllable dominating zero or more unstressed ones. In syllable-timed languages, is the syllable, regardless of stress that functions as unit of speech production and perception. In mora-timed languages, it is the mora, a sub-unit of the syllable. Being sensitive to different sets of rhythmic properties may present an advantage to L2 learners, as these could help them more promptly identify and select the target language. Previous research has shown that individuals who master languages with different rhythmic properties are more sensitive to music rhythmic variation than individuals who master languages with similar rhythmic preferences or with very low-proficiency in an L2. The current thesis addresses two of these claims, namely, that learning languages with similar rhythmic properties does not present such an advantage to rhythmic perception as mastering languages with distinct use of rhythm; and that learning a second language, regardless of its rhythmic similarities to or differences from one's first language, enhances individuals' rhythmic perception. This thesis does so by conducting two meta-analyses, using data from two different studies by Roncaglia-Denissen and colleagues (2016; 2013). The results support both claims, namely that learning a second language with similar rhythmic properties as one's first language does not present such a great advantage as mastering languages with different rhythmic properties and that proficiency in a second language is positively associated with individuals' music rhythmic perception. The implication of these findings is that speech rhythm seems to be part of a domain-general skill, which is used in and transferred to different cognitive domains, whenever acoustic similarities between domains are encountered.Show less
This thesis analyses the uses of nature in the creation of an Israeli national image. It traces the uses of nature from early Zionist thinking through to the modern day. It exIt examines how nature...Show moreThis thesis analyses the uses of nature in the creation of an Israeli national image. It traces the uses of nature from early Zionist thinking through to the modern day. It exIt examines how nature was used as a tool to create a nation, to claim land from Palestinians and how it has been used as a dividing factor between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, through the kibbutz and ma'abara. Films and music are analysed in order to assess how these ideas and discourses have lasted through until the modern dayShow less
Since its emergence, heavy metal music met with serious opposition. Accused of promoting violence, suicide, drug abuse and distorted images of sex, heavy metal artists were considered a threat to...Show moreSince its emergence, heavy metal music met with serious opposition. Accused of promoting violence, suicide, drug abuse and distorted images of sex, heavy metal artists were considered a threat to the well-being of America’s youth. These accusations were major arguments in the 1980s religious conservatives’ crusade to establish family values. Trying to raise parents’ awareness of the music’s alleged catastrophic effects, these conservatives campaigned to restrain or eliminate heavy metal music. In 1985, the then newly-formed Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) condemned several artists for advocating violence and substance abuse and for their predilection of the occult in their songs’ lyrics. PMRC created an agenda that was later used in court cases against heavy metal artists.Show less
This thesis looks at the usage of music and seeks to determine possible political consequences of collective action by social movements such as Black Lives Matter. The aim of the study is to...Show moreThis thesis looks at the usage of music and seeks to determine possible political consequences of collective action by social movements such as Black Lives Matter. The aim of the study is to establish if music can ultimately increase political consequences for social movements.Show less
Idols are the most popular performers in the Japanese entertainment world. They sing, dance, act and appear in magazines. Their pictures are sold in specialized shops and they sell several thousand...Show moreIdols are the most popular performers in the Japanese entertainment world. They sing, dance, act and appear in magazines. Their pictures are sold in specialized shops and they sell several thousand copies per single. But in Europe and America such idols don’t exist. What is it that makes these idols so popular in Japan, while they are not popular in Europe and America? What is important for a Japanese idol to become popular? I will look at three different aspects: looks, talent and personality. The general conclusion is that talent is more important for Japanese idols than looks and personalityShow less
