Evaluation of the musical style using the semantic differential technique and a fuzzy graphic rating scale

A great number of studies related to the cognitive processes involved in listening to music have demonstrated the existence of an identification process of salient cues: each subject could pick up distinctive musical features during listening. The present work is aimed to explore the ability of naïve listeners to evaluate musical excerpts. Thirty musical sequences were selected from the Sonatas repertoire of Mozart, Beethoven and Clementi. Two series of fifteen sequences were presented to the subjects in a random order. The subjects were asked to evaluate the sequences with a battery of twelve bipolar items, using two different methodologies: the semantic differential technique and a fuzzy graphic rating scale. With respect to the semantic differential technique, the subjects were invited to compile a Likert scale choosing among 7 possible alternatives (from one adjective to the opposed one). In the other condition, the subjects could express their opinion using a fuzzy graphic rating scale: they were invited to draw a cross on the line between the two opposed adjectives; after having put the cross, the subjects were asked to draw two little vertical lines, one on the left and the other on the right side of the cross, in order to indicate how much their choice could be blurred towards the ends of the line. The results show that both the methodologies considered permit to measure the music compositional style, but using the fuzzy graphic rating scale, the subjects express their opinion in a more precise way than using the semantic differential technique.