Abstract
A well-known tradition in the study of visual aesthetics holds that the experience of visual beauty is grounded in global computational or statistical properties of the stimulus, for example, scale-invariant Fourier spectrum or self-similarity. Some approaches rely on neural mechanisms, such as efficient computation, processing fluency, or the responsiveness of the cells in the primary visual cortex. These proposals are united by the fact that the contributing factors are hypothesized to be global (i.e., they concern the percept as a whole), formal or non-conceptual (i.e., they concern form instead of content), computational and/or statistical, and based on relatively low-level sensory properties. Here we consider that the study of aesthetic responses to music could benefit from the same approach. Thus, along with local features such as pitch, tuning, consonance/dissonance, harmony, timbre, or beat, also global sonic properties could be viewed as contributing toward creating an aesthetic musical experience. Several such properties are discussed and their neural implementation is reviewed in the light of recent advances in neuroaesthetics.
Highlights
Global Sensory Qualities and Aesthetic Experience in MusicSome approaches rely on neural mechanisms, such as efficient computation, processing fluency, or the responsiveness of the cells in the primary visual cortex
When the legendary music producer Phil Spector created the trademark “Wall of Sound” aesthetics during the 1960s, the point was not about music theory or song writing, or even about instrumentation, but something abstract yet firmly anchored in the world of sense: he wanted to create a saturated, dense sound that would be aesthetically appealing even when played out from the monoaural AM radio and jukebox devices of the time
Could similar properties play a role in determining aesthetic responses to music, and could this hypothetical causal relation be pinpointed accurately? we argue that this is likely the case and propose hypotheses to be tested in future research, complementing the current focus on more local factors derived from music theory
Summary
Some approaches rely on neural mechanisms, such as efficient computation, processing fluency, or the responsiveness of the cells in the primary visual cortex These proposals are united by the fact that the contributing factors are hypothesized to be global (i.e., they concern the percept as a whole), formal or non-conceptual (i.e., they concern form instead of content), computational and/or statistical, and based on relatively low-level sensory properties. Along with local features such as pitch, tuning, consonance/dissonance, harmony, timbre, or beat, global sonic properties could be viewed as contributing toward creating an aesthetic musical experience. Several such properties are discussed and their neural implementation is reviewed in the light of recent advances in neuroaesthetics
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