The purpose of this study is to examine the difference of emotional responses to
music between adults with and without visual impairment. The factors of examination
were the congruence of intended emotion of the music; the perceived emotion of the
listener and the intensity of such perceived emotions. These values were compared
between two groups. A total of 65 participants (28 visually impaired, 37 typical
vision) listened to twelve 15-second excerpts and reported which emotion they felt
among four common emotions; happiness, sadness, anger, and fear. They then graded
the extent of intensity of the emotion in percentages. Based on previous studies and
with reference of reviews of experts, musical stimuli were selected from various
films, because of its purpose to induce strong emotional responses. Results showed
that both groups similarly identified the intended emotions of music. However, there
was a significant difference in intensity of emotional responses between the groups
(p< .05) showing a lower mean average in the visually impaired group. The intensity
of sadness was higher in this group than in the sighted, while that of happiness and
anger was similar for both groups. In regards to fear, the visually impaired scored a
noticeably lower percentage than the sighted. Based on the results of this study, we
can presume that the lack of visual experience among visually impaired adults may
influence the depth and intensity of their emotional responses to music. This suggests
that the limited visual input experienced during their developmental period combined
with less opportunity to know music as a multisensory stimulation, are factors to be
considered. Future studies should continue to investigate the psychological mechanism
of emotional responses to music in individuals with visual impairment.