title: Music chills: The eye pupil as a mirror to music's soul.
abstract: This study evaluated whether music-induced aesthetic "chill" responses, which typically correspond to peak emotional experiences, can be objectively monitored by degree of pupillary dilation. Participants listened to self-chosen songs versus control songs chosen by other participants. The experiment included an active condition where participants made key presses to indicate when experiencing chills and a passive condition (without key presses). Chills were reported more frequently for self-selected songs than control songs. Pupil diameter was concurrently measured by an eye-tracker while participants listened to each of the songs. Pupil size was larger within specific time-windows around the chill events, as monitored by key responses, than in comparison to pupil size observed during 'passive' song listening. In addition, there was a clear relationship between pupil diameter within the chills-related time-windows during both active and passive conditions, thus ruling out the possibility that chills-related pupil dilations were an artifact of making a manual response. These findings strongly suggest that music chills can be visible in the moment-to-moment changes in the size of pupillary responses and that a neuromodulatory role of the central norepinephrine system is thereby implicated in this phenomenon.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway. Electronic address: bruno.laeng@psykologi.uio.no.
authors: Bruno
authors: B
authors: Laeng
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway.
authors: Lise Mette
authors: LM
authors: Eidet
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway.
authors: Unni
authors: U
authors: Sulutvedt
authors: Department of Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience, Washington State University, USA.
authors: Jaak
authors: J
authors: Panksepp
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology*; D011680:Pupil / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Aesthetics; Attention; Awareness; Music chills; Peak emotions; Pupillometry