Feelings and the enjoyment of music

Abstract

Research indicates that people value music primarily because of the emotions it evokes. Yet, the notion of musical emotions remains controversial, and researchers have so far been unable to offer a satisfactory account of such emotions. We argue that the study of musical emotions has suffered from a neglect of underlying mechanisms. Specifically, researchers have studied musical emotions without regard to how they were evoked, or have assumed that the emotions must be based on the "default" mechanism for emotion induction, a cognitive appraisal. Here, we present a novel theoretical framework featuring six additional mechanisms through which music listening may induce emotions: (1) brain stem reflexes, (2) evaluative conditioning, (3) emotional contagion, (4) visual imagery, (5) episodic memory, and (6) musical expectancy. We propose that these mechanisms differ regarding such characteristics as their information focus, ontogenetic development, key brain regions, cultural impact, induction speed, degree of volitional influence, modularity, and dependence on musical structure. By synthesizing theory and findings from different domains, we are able to provide the first set of hypotheses that can help researchers to distinguish among the mechanisms. We show that failure to control for the underlying mechanism may lead to inconsistent or non-interpretable findings. Thus, we argue that the new framework may guide future research and help to resolve previous disagreements in the field. We conclude that music evokes emotions through mechanisms that are not unique to music, and that the study of musical emotions could benefit the emotion field as a whole by providing novel paradigms for emotion induction.

Subjective Appraisal of Music

“…Some authors oppose the emotions derived from evaluation of the musical content (such as fear, anger) to music‐specific emotions generated by the intrinsic qualities of the music or by evaluating the music itself as an entire object 49 . These “aesthetic” emotions may be simplified as joy, thrill, awe, being moved, and enjoyment for a beautiful, well‐structured or intensively expressive music or vice versa, as boredom, disgust, annoyance, and disinterest for a blatant, badly performed, repetitive, or ugly piece of music.…”

‘Gilded Gravel in the Bowl’: Ireland’s cuisine and culinary heritage in the poetry of Seamus Heaney

“…Cuisines are commonly marked by a characteristic set of flavours and seasonings, beyond but also including the ones achieved by basic ingredients and manipulation techniques. 130 An example would be the lard-onion-paprika flavours of Hungarian cuisine, or dill-juniper-sour cream on the Baltic coast. However, Rozin explains that not every cuisine offers a strongly characteristic combination of seasonings, as people whose diet emphasizes animal foods tend to season less consistently than people whose diet is composed primarily of plant foods.…”

Συναισθηματικές Αντιδράσεις Στην Εκφραστική Παράμετρο Της Συμφωνίας/Διαφωνίας Κατά Τη Μουσική Ακρόαση Και Η Σημασία Τους Για Τη Μουσική Εκπαίδευση

“…Συν τοις άλλοις, σηµαντικά στην εκπαίδευση είναι τα λεγόµενα «αισθητικά» συναισθήµατα, όπως αυτά προκύπτουν από την κατανόηση της µουσικής φόρµας και των συστατικών της. Ουσιαστικά, αυτά τα συναισθήµατα προέρχονται από την αντίληψη της µουσικής µορφής ως αποτέλεσµα της γνωστικής αξιολόγησης του καλλιτεχνικού αντικειµένου και της αισθητικής του αξίας (Rozin & Rozin, 2008;Scherer, 2004) 53 . Ως εκ τούτου, οι µουσικοπαιδαγωγοί θα πρέπει να εκθέτουν συχνά τους µαθητές τους σε αισθητικές εµπειρίες, ώστε να αναπτύξουν την ικανότητα για γνωστική επεξεργασία των µουσικών ή και άλλων καλλιτεχνικών εµπειριών τους (Reimer, 1989), µία ενέργεια που απαιτεί τόσο το γνωστικό όσο και το συναισθηµατικό κοµµάτι του εγκεφάλου να διαπλέκονται συνεργατικά.…”