How does music arouse "chills"? Investigating strong emotions, combining psychological, physiological, and psychoacoustical methods.
Music can arouse ecstatic "chill" experiences defined as "goose pimples" and as "shivers down the spine." We recorded chills both via subjects' self-reports and physiological reactions, finding that they do not occur in a reflex-like manner, but as a result of attentive, experienced, and conscious musical enjoyment.
Grewe
Oliver
O
Institut für Musikphysiologie und Musikermedizin, Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Hohenzollernstrasse 47, 30161 Hannover, Germany. oliver_grewe@gmx.de
Nagel
Frederik
F
Kopiez
Reinhard
R
Altenmüller
Eckart
E
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001307:Auditory Perception; D002648:Child; D023341:Chills; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D011584:Psychology / Q000379:methods*