Abstract
Music has a unique power to elicit moments of intense emotional and psychophysiological response. These moments – termed “chills,” “thrills”, “frissons,” etc. – are subjects of introspection and philosophical debate, as well as scientific study in music perception and cognition. The present article integrates the existing multidisciplinary literature in an attempt to define a comprehensive, testable, and ecologically valid model of transcendent psychophysiological moments in music.
Highlights
Music has a unique power to elicit moments of intense emotional and psychophysiological response
We begin by examining the murky, but understatedly consequential issue of nomenclature: what is a transcendent, psychophysiological moment of musical experience, and how does its lexical treatment fit into popular and academic discourse? How have researchers described this sensation far? Which terms work and which fall short? To answer these questions, we draw from the fields of cognitive neuroscience, phenomenology, psychology, and ethnomusicology, each of which comprises a corollary component to the study of music and emotions
CHILLS, THRILLS, AND FRISSON So what is a transcendent, psychophysiological moment of musical experience? In examining this question, one might begin by considering a broad, quasi-phenomenological framework such as that proposed by Gabrielsson (2011)
Summary
Music has a unique power to elicit moments of intense emotional and psychophysiological response. These moments – termed “chills,” “thrills”, “frissons,” etc. One might begin by considering a broad, quasi-phenomenological framework such as that proposed by Gabrielsson (2011) He terms these moments “Strong Experiences with Music (SEM),”based loosely on Maslow’s “Peak Experience” (Maslow, 1962). The criteria for these SEMs include distinctiveness, ineffability, existential, or transcendental feelings, and, poignantly, physical or quasi-physical sensations and powerful emotions. Both aim at identifying significant and testable parts of the transcendent moments www.frontiersin.org
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