{
  "abstract": "When listening to novel music, extra-musical information about the musician may influence a listener's evaluations of the music. Here, we studied the extent to which information about the musicians’ Humanness, Morality and Sex, conveyed by their vocal timbre and tessitura, affected listeners’ emotional and aesthetic responses to their music. This online, pre-registered experiment followed a 2 (Humanness: Human vs. AI model) × 2 (Vocalist Sex: Male vs. Female) × 3 (Morality: Moral, Immoral, Neutral) mixed factorial design. Participants (n = 400) were randomly assigned to one of four groups, differing in Humanness and Vocalist Sex. Participants read three descriptions depicting a Moral, Immoral and Neutral behaviour and listened to three unfamiliar songs pseudorandomly paired with a description. Emotional and aesthetic responses to each song were measured using validated measures (GEMS-9 scale) and additional items assessing feelings of being Moved, Connected, perceived Beauty, Liking and perceived Creativity. As predicted, linear mixed-effects models revealed significant main effects of Morality for all dependent variables, with Immoral descriptions consistently yielding more negative ratings. Contrary to predictions, we observed no differences in responses to songs based on Humanness, no significant interaction between Morality and Humanness and no effect of Vocalist Sex on responses.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion, Oslo, Norway.",
    "Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.",
    "Institute of Psychology, University of Silesia in Katowice, Katowice, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland.",
    "Department of Psychology, University College of Professional Education, Wrocław, Poland.",
    "Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, Finnish Centre of Excellence in Music, Mind, Body and Brain, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland.",
    "Department of Musicology & Psychology, University of Oslo, RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion, Oslo, Norway."
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Abbigail M Fleckenstein",
      "orcid": "0009-0003-1835-2098"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Mariola Paruzel-Czachura"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Katarzyna Pypno-Blajda"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Henna-Riikka Peltola",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-9372-1805"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "Jonna K Vuoskoski"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/b0r4e45s5gj1n.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1098/rsos.252167",
  "fulltext_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13682890",
  "id": "b0r4e45s5gj1n",
  "issns": [
    "2054-5703"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/10/252167/483800/Moral-echoes-do-morality-and-humanness-affect",
  "language": "eng",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2805|Neuroscience and Music Perception"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7223024055",
  "pdf_url": "https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article-pdf/doi/10.1098/rsos.252167/6172446/rsos.252167.pdf",
  "pmcid": "PMC13682890",
  "pmid": "42904303",
  "published": "2026-10-21",
  "publisher": "The Royal Society",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/b0r4e45s5gj1n.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:45Z",
      "native_id": "10.1098/rsos.252167",
      "source": "crossref",
      "url": "https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/10/252167/483800/Moral-echoes-do-morality-and-humanness-affect"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:19:53Z",
      "native_id": "MED:42904303",
      "source": "europepmc",
      "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42904303"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:2805|Neuroscience and Music Perception",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Moral echoes: do morality and humanness affect emotional and aesthetic responses to music?",
  "title_text": "Moral echoes: do morality and humanness affect emotional and aesthetic responses to music?",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:19:53Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/b0r4e45s5gj1n",
  "venue": "Royal Society Open Science",
  "versions": []
}