Abstract
Recent research has suggested that low-level psychoacoustic parameters such as loudness and spectral brightness are correlated with musical chills, a subjective emotional experience accompanied by goosebumps, shivers, and tingling sensations. These relationships may be explained by a vigilance theory of chills, through the process of auditory looming; however, these correlations or theories have never been causally tested. In the current study, participants ( N = 40) listened to five variations (original, low loudness, high loudness, low brightness, high brightness) of an experimental and control piece of chills music, characterized by a crescendo and guitar solo respectively; this qualitative distinction was made based on whether the underlying musical structure of the pieces was or was not capable of engaging auditory looming processes. It was predicted that increases in loudness would result in increased chills frequency across participants, indicated by button presses; brightness was included as an exploratory parameter. Results show that for the experimental piece, increases in loudness resulted in significantly more frequent chills experiences, and increases in brightness significantly reduced the frequency of chills, whereas no effects were found for the control piece. Findings are discussed in terms of vigilance and social bonding theories of chills, and the complex interactions between low-level psychoacoustic properties and higher-level musical structures.
Highlights
Recent research has suggested that low-level psychoacoustic parameters such as loudness and spectral brightness are correlated with musical chills, a subjective emotional experience accompanied by goosebumps, shivers, and tingling sensations
A crucial motivation for listening to music is to experience and regulate emotions (Schafer et al, 2013); researchers have investigated the associations between music and emotion from several perspectives, including understanding the perception of emotions in music (Fritz et al, 2009; Juslin & Timmers, 2010), characterizing emotions elicited by music (Zentner et al, 2008), and postulating on the possible mechanisms through which music can elicit emotions in listeners (Juslin & Vastfjall, 2008)
The maximum number of chills experienced by one participant was 16, whereas only two participants reported experiencing no chills; the mean number of chills reported across participants was 4.60 (SD 1⁄4 3.94)
Summary
Recent research has suggested that low-level psychoacoustic parameters such as loudness and spectral brightness are correlated with musical chills, a subjective emotional experience accompanied by goosebumps, shivers, and tingling sensations. These relationships may be explained by a vigilance theory of chills, through the process of auditory looming; these correlations or theories have never been causally tested. The extant literature suggests that properties in music, including loudness and brightness, are consistent communicators of emotional expression in music (Balkwill & Thompson, 1999; Balkwill et al, 2004), with relationships possibly reflecting acoustic similarities between music and emotional speech prosody (Juslin & Laukka, 2003; Ilie & Thompson, 2006)
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