音樂情緒感知是指聽眾對音樂表達情緒的認知和理解。本研究選取3歲、4歲、5歲和大學生四個年齡階段的中國被試,探討了他們分別在中國音樂和西方音樂條件下,對憤怒、悲傷、抒情和高興四類情緒的感知能力及發展特點。結果顯示:(1)兒童音樂情緒感知能力隨年齡的上升而提高,其中,4歲是兒童獲得基本感知能力的重要時期,5歲時已達到成人水平;(2)兒童對高興情緒的感知能力優于其他情緒類型;(3)兒童對中國音樂情緒和西方音樂情緒的感知能力并無顯著文化差異。

Music emotion perception refers to recognize emotions expressed through music. Selected subjects of 3 years old, 4 years old, 5 years old and college students were tested to know their capacity in recognizing the 4 emotional expressions of anger, sadness, tenderness and happiness through being exposed to the Chinese folk and the western classical music. The results showed that: 1) The recognition ability to music emotion improves with the increasing of age whilst 4 years old is a turning point for the development of such perception, The ability of 5years old is close to adult; 2) The recognition to different emotional category in music varies among children,happy is better than others; 3) The recognition ability of music is not affected by music culture.