Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
6-2026
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Program
Cognitive Neuroscience
Advisor
Edward Vessel
Subject Categories
Cognitive Neuroscience
Keywords
Music, complexity, integration
Abstract
Music is a type of aesthetic stimulus that unfolds dynamically over time. Combining approaches from previous research on musical preferences and research on spatial integration as a driver of visual aesthetic appreciation, we investigated how the integration of musical percepts over time influences listener enjoyment and the level of agreement between the enjoyment ratings of each listener. We used a DNN tool to quantify temporal dependencies in 32 music clips and also computed complexity scores for them. Subjects listened to each music clip while using a rotating dial to provide a continuous enjoyment rating, changing the dial’s position at the moments when they felt increases or decreases in enjoyment. They also provided a single overall rating for each clip of music after listening to it. We used a “mean-minus-one” correlation measure to produce across-subject agreement scores. We found that complexity has small but significant relationships with overall enjoyment ratings, mean continuous enjoyment ratings, agreement for overall ratings, and agreement for continuous ratings. This suggests a preference for more complex music on average, whether that complexity arises from characteristics of the music itself or from the ways that listeners experience it.
Recommended Citation
Miller, August, "How Temporal Integration and Complexity Drive Musical Enjoyment" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6662
