Try it now!

Can you always recognize the emotional shading a singer is giving to the interpretation of a musical phrase?

The Geneva Emotion & Music Research Group is conducting a major study to find out how good people are in recognizing emotion interpretations and will link the results to acoustic features of the singer’s performance. Would you like to participate and find out how good you are?

You can listen to 28 melodic phrases interpreted by eight internationally renowned opera singers to represent different emotions. Your task will be to judge the emotion expressed in each phrase.

The test lasts about 15 minutes. At the end you will receive feedback on how many emotions you identified correctly (in the sense of corresponding to the singer’s intention).

More than 500 listeners have participated so far. The chart below shows which emotions are best recognized and with which others they are confused. The average hit rate is 10 out of 28 phrases. Can you do better?

Click on one of the following links to test your ability:

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