Psychology Journal, 2012 ISSN: 1931-5694 Vol. 9, No.3 wow.psychologicalpublishing com pp. 13-117 © 2012 Psychological Publishing Can Artist Biographies Bias Music Perception? Mark C. Gridley* Robert Hoff Mercyhurst University *Mark C. Gridley; Mereyhurst University; 501 East 38th Street; Erie, Pennsylvania; 16546; mgridley@heidelberg. edu (email) ABSTRACT - Students in a jazz and popular music survey course listened to Chatlie Parker’s 1946 recording of “Lover Man,” and then indicated their perceptions of emotion on a survey form that required them to circle positions on 7-point continua in which “1” was “happy,” “7” was “sad,” “I” was “enthusiastic,” and “7” was “uninvolved.” During ‘one semester of the course 94 students listened to the music after having no exposure to ‘any biographical information on Parker's fife, During another semester of the course 84 students listened to the music after watching the Ken Bums JAZZ television episodes devoted to the tragedies in Parker's life and the unfortunate circumstances of the “Lover Man” recording session and reading passages about those same tragedies from a jazz history book. Emotions perceived in the music by the students who were exposed to the tragedies were significantly sadder and less enthusiastic than emotions perceived in the music by students who were not exposed to the tragedies, an bias listeners’ perception of emotion in the artist's music. In regard to perception of jazz. improvisation, Gridley (1978, p. 336) had cautioned journalists and historians ‘about this. Despite the cautionary note, however. several jazz history books have been published which include accounts of particularly tragic aspects of the lives of jazz. artists (Porter & Ullman, 1993; Larson, 2005; Harker, 2005; Martin & Waters, 2006; Lawn, 2007; Tanner, Megill, & Gerow, 2009). Artists outside of jazz have also had their creations filtered through biographical details. Listeners are invariably presented with information about Tchaikovsky's troubled life, his homosexuality, and his suicide, not only in most so- called music appreciation courses but also in the program notes that symphony orchestra subscribers read just prior to heating his compositions performed. This situation is distressing because the effect of artist biographies, especially those that are particularly tragic, may be continuous with the psychological concept of priming (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996; Higgins, 1996). As a form of biasing, priming unconsciously influences us so that our response to a new stimulus, or a related one, reflects more than our response would be if we previously had not been exposed to the stimulus, concept or response. Kenrick, Neuberg, and Cialdini (2007) brought the concept home by analogy to preparing a lawnmower motor for ignition by pumping a little gas into it before pulling I is reasonable to expect that information about an artist's life, especially tragic events,us Psychology Journal, 2012, Vol. 9, No.3, pp. 113-117 the ignition cord. Similarly, knowledge, like gas, may be better prepared to do its job when it has first been made ready, or accessible. Perhaps the jazz history book authors did not believe that their negative accounts could bias perception of emotion in music for novice listeners, They may have been unfamiliar with research on the effects of priming. Therefore, the present study was undertaken 10 document the effects of negative biographical details on perception of emotion in the music that was produced by the subject of those details. The hypothesis was that exposing listeners to tragic details of the artist's life and the unfortunate circumstances of a particular recording session would increase the likelihood that listeners would perceive sadness in that music and perceive that such distractions at the session affected the player's involvement with his improvisatory task. Method Participants The sample consisted of the entire enrollments of two classes in a survey of jazz. and popular music course at a large urban community college. ‘The course had no prerequisites, Both classes used the same syllabus, same textbook, and same instructor. For this study the classes were drawn from different semesters, designated Sample 1, 94 students enrolled in its winter-spring semester 2011, and Sample 2, 84 students enrolled in its fall semester 2011. Instrument ‘A “Perception of Emotion Survey” was employed, one line of which constituted a 7- point continuum in which position "I" was happy and position "7" was sad. Another line ‘on the form contained a continuum for enthusiastic-uninvolved, in which position "I" was enthusiastic, and position "7" was uninvolved. The form asked respondents to "Circle the number that best indicates your perception of emotion in the saxophone solo you heard on the recording." Stimuli ‘On a classroom sound system, participants heard the performance of "Lover Man" that was recorded during a session in which saxophonist Charlie Parker was experiencing withdrawal from heroin: the 1946 recording of "Lover Man" for the Dial Record ‘Company. This constituted the performance that was detailed in Harker's (2005) textbook account. Procedure When the course reached its coverage of bebop, ordinarily the instructor presented episodes of the Ken Burns JAZZ television series that included biographical details about tragedies that befell bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker, including an account of Parker's ill health during a 1946 recording session that produced his “Lover Man” performance. For instructing Sample | the instructor was asked to omit the Burns video as well as any lecture material about the life of Charlie Parker, or the circumstances of the “Lover Man” recording session, However, he did give students excerpts from a jazz history textbook that detailed the biography of Dizzy Gillespie. For Sample 2 the instructor was asked to run the course in his original manner and to additionally require reading of excerpts fromPsychology Jounal, 2012, Vol. 9, No.3, pp. 13-117 us a jazz history textbook by Harker (2005) that detailed tragic aspects of saxophonist Charlie Parkers life, including an account of the “Lover Man” recording session in which the saxophonist was experiencing withdrawal from heroin due to curtailment of his supply and subsequently had an emotional breakdown, arrest, and commitment to six ‘months in a mental institution. Students participated in this study as part of their reading and listening activities for the segment in the course that was concerned with bebop. During the course's routine coverage of bebop, students heard recordings by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, and they read about the music as presented in their textbook assignments. ‘The same instructor had taught this course for several years, and each semester he had required the same textbook and recordings that accompanied the book. The textbook included no biographical details about the musicians. Neither the instructor nor the students in either class had any knowledge of the study's hypothesis. The Perception of Emotion Survey was given to all students during the final five minutes of regularly scheduled class periods at the end of the course's coverage of bebop. The survey form was covered with a face sheet that stated "Do not turn to the next page until you have heard the entire recording.” Students in sample 2 (participants who had read about tragedies in the life of Charlie Parker and the circumstances of the "Lover Man' recording session) were given two additional face sheets covering their Perception of Emotion Survey. The outermost sheet additionally primed the listeners by repeating the account of the circumstances of the recording session and the saxophonist's subsequent breakdown. The second face sheet stated, "You are going to hear a recording from the session that you just read about." For Sample 1, the face sheet on the survey form did not prime the listeners. It stated only, "You are going to hear Charlie Parker's June 29, 1946 recording of ‘Lover Man.' Do not turn to the next page until you have heard the entire recording.” Results The primed group previously had been exposed to written and video accounts of ‘agedies in Parker's life and three times to the circumstance of the “Lover Man” recording session. These students indicated an average perception of sadness (5.34 on a 7-point scale) that was significantly closer to the sad end of the happy-sad continuum than the unprimed group's average perception of emotion (4.56; = 176; p< 0001; d = .592). The primed group indicated an average perception of musician enthusiasm (4.3 on a 7-point scale) that was significantly closer to the "uninvolved" end of the enthusiastic-uninvolved continuum than the unprimed group's average perception of musician enthusiasm (3.5; = 3.354; df= 176; p <.001; d= .504), jiscussion Our results corroborate the findings from studies with the same design that were run at three other colleges, all of which obtained results in the predicted direction, but none of which had sufficiently large sample sizes to submit for publication. Like the results of those studies, the findings in this study demonstrated that information about the life of the performer and the circumstances of the recording session affected novice listeners’ perceptions of emotion in the music, just as previous studies by Gridley and Hoff (2010)16 Paychology Jour, 2012, Vol.9,No. 3, pp. 113-117 and Gridley (2009) had demonstrated that journalist accounts of emotion in John Coltrane's improvisations affected novice listeners’ perceptions of emotion in Coltrane's music. As further illustration for the biasing effects of negative biographical details, one participant swrote on the final page of her response sheet, "When Parker was high he was less involved with his playing.” She wrote this even though there was no atea of the response sheets designated for comments, and no one was encouraged to comment in any way. These findings suggest that teachers of courses in music appreciation and authors of music history textbooks would be well advised to let the music speak for itself and allow students to judge it on its own merits instead of biasing student perceptions with details about the artists’ lives. Students may perceive emotions in the music that differ considerably from those that teachers and book authors might expect to be evoked by particular biographical information. Caveats regarding the study's method may warrant music appreciation class were exposed to tragic details regarding a jazz performer's life. They were then surveyed about their emotion perceptions to music by that performer. Then their perceptions were compared with perceptions to the same music by an equivalent class of students who had not been exposed to any biographical details regarding the performer. The possible effects of demand characteristics can never be entirely ruled out when a research design such as this is employed. Three facts about the structors in this particular study, however, may lessen suspicions that the instructors somehow influenced their students" perceptions of emotion in the music, biasing them to support the study’s hypothesis. First, the studies were not run in any classes taught by the authors: The studies had been conducted in four different states at schools unaffiliated with the authors, All of the structors were veteran jazz history teachers who had been routinely presenting biographies containing tragie details about the jazz greats in their courses, via the Ken Burns videos and their own lectures, even though the required textbooks for their students did not contain biographies. Therefore, these instructors would have had a vested interest in disproving the study’s hypothesis if they guessed the hypothesis during the study. They would have been more inclined to bias student responses toward a result of no difference between experimental and control groups because such a result would defend them against the likely embarrassment of learning that the teaching method they had been using was biasing their students’ perceptions of the musi Second, all but one of the four instructors voiced surprise when they learned the results, apparently because these results were generally contrary to their intuitions. “Third, if the instructors had biased their students’ perception toward a finding of “no difference” then the true results would be even more supportive of the study's hypothesis, ‘once the effects of that “no difference” bias had been subtracted. sion, Students in a large References Bargh. J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows. L. (1996). Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait constructs and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 230-234. Gridley, M. 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