Update of the Hevner adjective checklist

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Emotion Research

Background:

• Hevner's checklist is a standard tool for assessing music-evoked emotions.
• The checklist has not been updated since the 1950s-1960s revisions by Farnsworth.
• Existing measures may not fully capture the complexity of musical emotions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To revise and update Hevner's adjective checklist for measuring emotional responses to music.
• To create a more comprehensive and current list of adjectives describing music-related affect.
• To validate the updated list within a two-dimensional emotion space.

Main Methods:

• Surveyed 133 musically experienced individuals on the suitability of 91 adjectives.
• Included original Hevner adjectives, plus terms from Russell's circumplex model and Whissell's dictionary.
• Grouped adjectives based on a two-dimensional emotion space, reinstating some dropped terms and removing others.

Main Results:

• A revised list of 46 adjectives was developed.
• The final list is organized into nine distinct clusters within an emotion space.
• The updated checklist offers a refined set of descriptors for music-induced emotions.

Conclusions:

• The revised adjective list provides a more current and validated tool for studying music and emotion.
• This updated measure can enhance research accuracy in music psychology.
• The findings contribute to a better understanding of the emotional dimensions of music perception.