Document Type

Research Paper

Publication Date

2024

First page number:

1

Last page number:

25

Abstract

Listening to music is widely regarded as a pleasant experience, but sometimes music evokes such a strong rush of emotions that it elicits physical sensations. Musical chills, also referred to as frisson or thrills, is a peak emotional response to music often distinguished by goosebumps, tingling sensations, or raised hair on the skin (del Campo & Kehle, 2016). Musical chills are typically described as pleasurable, as evidenced by subjective self-reported pleasure ratings of songs that elicit chills (Grewe et al., 2007; Grewe et al., 2011; Salimpoor et al., 2009; Sumpf et al., 2015, Mori & Iwagana, 2015, 2017; Bannister, 2020) although they occasionally elicit negative emotions (Panksepp, 1995 Maruskin et al., 2012; Bannister, 2019).

A common approach for gauging musical chills is to have participants self-report how often or how strongly they experience chills via a questionnaire after listening to a piece of music (Sloboda, 1991; Panksepp, 1995; Blood & Zatorre, 2001; Juslin et al., 2014; Bannister, 2019). Chills can also be continuously self-reported, typically by having listeners press a button to indicate a reaction, which is advantageous in allowing researchers to pinpoint the moment that chills occur – as well as the moments leading up to and following the reaction (Grewe et al., 2007; Guhn et al., 2007; Nagel et al., 2008; Grewe et al., 2009; Salimpoor et al., 2009; Grewe et al., 2011; Salimpoor et al., 2011; Mori & Iwagana, 2015; Mori & Iwagana, 2017; Bannister, 2020). A range of physiological correlates of chills have been identified, such as an increase in skin conductance response – a measure of the quick changes in the electrodermal activity of the skin (Guhn et al., 2007; Salimpoor et al., 2009; Grewe et al., 2011; Salimpoor et al., 2011; Mori & Iwagana, 2015; Mori & Iwagana, 2017; Bannister & Eerola, 2018), and an increase in heart rate (Blood & Zatorre, 2001; Guhn et al., 2007; Grewe et al., 2009; Salimpoor et al., 2009; Salimpoor et al., 2011). Furthermore, chills have been linked to brain activity in the ventral striatum, limbic and paralimbic structures, and various other neural structures linked to pleasure and reward (Blood & Zatorre, 2001). These correlates of chills are important because they provide a measure of a subjective experience which may shed light on the phenomenon of musical chills and musical emotional more generally.

Controlled Subject

Music; Musical perception; Perception--Psychological aspects

Disciplines

Music | Psychology

File Format

pdf

File Size

437 KB

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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