Marcel Zentner
Marcel Zentner | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Professor of Psychology[1] |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Zurich[1] |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Psychology[1] |
| Institutions | University of Innsbruck[1] |
| Main interests | Personality development, psychological assessment, music psychology, psychology of mating, psychology of emotion[1] |
Marcel Zentner is a music psychologist and professor at the University of Innsbruck known for his contributions to music psychology assessment tools, particularly the Geneva Emotional Music Scale.[1]
Education
[edit]Between 1986 and 1992, Zentner studied psychology, clinical child psychology, and philosophy at the University of Zurich and Harvard University. He received a licentiate diploma in psychology in 1992 from the University of Zurich. In 1996, he got his PhD in psychology, psychopathology, and philosophy from the University of Zurich. He received a habilitation in psychology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland in 2004.[1]
Academic positions
[edit]Zentner worked as a post-doctoral associate for the department of psychology of Harvard University. He worked as a maitre-assistant for the Geneva Emotion Research Group from 1996 to 2001. He held a SNSF professorship at the University of Geneva from 2001 to 2007 and then worked as an associate professor at the University of York from 2008 to 2013. Since 2014, he has been a professor of psychology at the University of Innsbruck.[1]
Geneva Emotional Music Scale
[edit]Along with Didier Grandjean and Klaus Scherer, Zentner developed the Geneva Emotional Music Scale, the first self-report scale designed to measure emotions felt by music.[2] The GEMS was initially designed as a 45-item inventory based on a nine-factor model of emotions experienced by music, but 25-item and 9-item versions were later created as well without losing much reliability.[3] The GEMS is more accurate in discriminating emotion experienced by music than other emotional scales not designed for music perception.[2] Zentner gave a TedX Talk describing the GEMS in 2021.[4]
The initial paper describing the GEMS by Zentner, Grandjean and Scherer was the second-most cited article in the journal Emotion between 2009 and 2023.[2][5]
Other work
[edit]In 2012, alongside Lily Law, Zentner developed the Profile of Music Perception Skills (PROMS), an objective test of musical ability. The PROMS has the ability to distinguish between musical ability and musical experience.[6] Two shortened versions, called the Short-PROMS and the Mini-PROMS, were developed in 2017.[7]
In 2024, Zentner and others developed the Emotion-to-Music Mapping Atlas, a database of music tracks rated in an academic setting based on the GEMS.[8] As of September 2025, the EMMA has 817 rated musical tracks in its database based on the rating of 867 participants.[9]
In addition to music-emotion assessment, Zentner has studied musical development in children[10][11][12] and physiological responses to music.[13] He has also studied romantic partner preferences,[14][15] gender gaps between countries,[15][16] and child temperament assessment.[17][18]
In 2015, with Rebecca Shiner, Zentner published Handbook of Temperament, a book about the development of temperament and personality.[19]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h "Marcel Zentner". Musemap. Retrieved 2025-09-06.
- ^ a b c Zentner, Marcel; Grandjean, Didier; Scherer, Klaus R. (2008). "Emotions evoked by the sound of music: Characterization, classification, and measurement". Emotion. 8 (4): 494–521. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.8.4.494. PMID 18729581. S2CID 447039.
- ^ Jacobsen, Peer-Ole; Strauss, Hannah; Vigl, Julia; Zangerle, Eva; Zentner, Marcel (2025). "Assessing aesthetic music-evoked emotions in a minute or less: A comparison of the GEMS-45 and the GEMS-9". Musicae Scientiae. 29: 184–192. doi:10.1177/10298649241256252. Retrieved 2 August 2025.
- ^ Zentner, Marcel (2021-12-16). 9 great composers explained in 9 emotions (Video). TedX Talks.
- ^ "GEMS". Musemap. Retrieved 2025-09-07.
- ^ Law, Lily N. C.; Zentner, Marcel (2012). "Assessing Musical Abilities Objectively: Construction and Validation of the Profile of Music Perception Skills". PLOS ONE. 7 (12) e52508. Bibcode:2012PLoSO...752508L. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0052508. PMC 3532219. PMID 23285071.
- ^ Zentner, Marcel; Strauss, Hannah (2017). "Assessing musical ability quickly and objectively: Development and validation of the Short-PROMS and the Mini-PROMS". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1400 (1): 33–45. Bibcode:2017NYASA1400...33Z. doi:10.1111/nyas.13410. PMID 28704888.
- ^ Strauss, Hannah; Vigl, Julia; Jacobsen, Peer-Ole; Bayer, Martin; Talamini, Francesca; Vigl, Wolfgang; Zangerle, Eva; Zentner, Marcel (2024). "The Emotion-to-Music Mapping Atlas (EMMA): A systematically organized online database of emotionally evocative music excerpts". Behavior Research Methods. 56 (4): 3560–3577. doi:10.3758/s13428-024-02336-0. PMC 11133078. PMID 38286947.
- ^ "EMMA - Emotion-to-Music Mapping Atlas". Retrieved 2025-09-07.
- ^ "Scientists Study Dancing Babies ... Enough Said?". NPR. 2010-03-19.
- ^ Zentner, Marcel; Eerola, Tuomas (2010). "Rhythmic engagement with music in infancy". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107 (13): 5768–5773. Bibcode:2010PNAS..107.5768Z. doi:10.1073/pnas.1000121107. PMC 2851927. PMID 20231438.
- ^ How Music Makes Us Feel (Video). 2012.
- ^ Doucleff, Michaeleen (2012-02-11). "Anatomy of a Tear-Jerker". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2025-09-08.
- ^ Zentner, Marcel; Eagly, Alice H. (2015). "A sociocultural framework for understanding partner preferences of women and men: Integration of concepts and evidence". European Review of Social Psychology. 26: 328–373. doi:10.1080/10463283.2015.1111599.
- ^ a b Zentner, Marcel; Mitura, Klaudia (2012). "Stepping Out of the Caveman's Shadow". Psychological Science. 23 (10): 1176–1185. doi:10.1177/0956797612441004. PMID 22933455.
- ^ Zentner, Marcel; von Aufsess, Christian (2022). "Is being gender nonconforming distressing? It depends where you live: Gender equality across 15 nations predicts how much gender nonconformity is related to self-esteem". Psychological Medicine. 52 (10): 1857–1865. doi:10.1017/S0033291720003645. PMID 33190647.
- ^ Zentner, Marcel (2020). "Identifying child temperament risk factors from 2 to 8 years of age: Validation of a brief temperament screening tool in the US, Europe, and China". European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 29 (5): 665–678. doi:10.1007/s00787-019-01379-5. PMC 7250798. PMID 31414220.
- ^ Biedermann, Vivienne; Zentner, Marcel (2024). "Assessing Temperament Risk Factors in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence: Development and Validation of the Integrative Late Childhood Temperament Inventory". Child Psychiatry & Human Development. doi:10.1007/s10578-024-01675-5. PMID 38619753.
- ^ Zentner, Marcel; Shiner, Rebecca (2015-09-01). Handbook of Temperament. The Guilford Press. ISBN 978-1462524990.