A Study on the Effects of Combining Music and Animation on Emotional Induction

In today’s digital era, multimedia integrates text, audio, and video to evoke emotions in entertainment and education. However, understanding how components, particularly music and animation, affect emotional responses remains incomplete. Twelve participants were presented with: (1) music, (2) silent animation, and (3) musical animation. Emotional responses were assessed using self-ratings and physiological measures, including EEG and HRV. Behavior-wise, the results suggested that music could primarily evoke perceived emotions more positively than other conditions, but silent animation did not seem to affect them. Physiologically, music led to increased relaxation, indicated by higher alpha power and HF. Additionally, silent animation evoked greater active attention levels, as reflected in higher beta power, LF, and LF/HF ratio. Our results, however, did not find significant effects between music and musical animation. Overall, these results supported the idea that audio stimuli can evoke more potent affective responses than visual stimuli within positive contexts.