This article explores the problem of the extent to which recognition of emotions is a universal ability that does not depend on the type of stimulus. The overall design of the study was to measure the accuracy of the subjects’ ability to recognize emotions of others and emotions in music and to analyse how these abilities relate to each other. A positive correlation between the accuracy of emotion recognition in social and music perception was hypothesized. The second hypothesis suggested that the relationship between the accuracy of emotion recognition in music and social perception would be stronger for the listeners of an expert type rather than for listeners of an emotional type.

To measure the accuracy of emotion recognition in social perception the author used Lyusin–Ovsyannikova’s video-test of emotion recognition. To measure the accuracy of emotion recognition in music a special tool similar to video-test was developed. A questionnaire to determine the type of listening perception, based on the audience typology by Adorno, was designed. The results found a positive correlation between the accuracy of emotion recognition in social and music perception, which confirmed the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis was not confirmed at the conventional significance level but there was a trend in the expected direction; this can be attributed to the insufficient sample size. In future studies, it is proposed to distinguish between two aspects of the ability to recognize emotions (universal and specific).