Abstract
Previous attempts to find meaning in emotional responses to music often begin with analysis of dynamic tonal patterns, with observation of the emotional behavior of listeners or with self-reports of emotional feelings. In this study, we begin with a somewhat detailed description of physical processes in the human auditory system that lead to the activation of processes in the autonomic nervous system, which produce embodied emotional responses to environmental challenges. We then propose an answer to the question: Why were some of the same embodied responses that were originally adapted to meet the challenges of self-preservation and self-perpetuation in the course of human evolution coopted to serve as responses to perceived dynamic patterns in music? We find that a likely answer to this question involves uncertainties in the possible outcomes of antecedent or consequent musical events.
References
Alain, Claude, Stephen R. Arnott, Stephanie Hevenor, Simon Graham & Cheryl L. Grady. 2001. “What” and “where” in the human auditory system. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 98(21). 12301–12306.10.1073/pnas.211209098Search in Google Scholar
Aristotle of Stagirus. 1941 [384–322 BCE]. On memory and reminiscence. In R. McKeon (ed.), The basic works of Aristotle, J. I. Beare (trans.). New York: Random House.Search in Google Scholar
Cantor, Robert M. 2014. A semiotic model of visual perception. Semiotica 200(1/4). 1–20.10.1515/sem-2014-0008Search in Google Scholar
Damasio, Antonio. 1999. The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness. New York: Harcourt.Search in Google Scholar
Damasio, Antonio. 2003. Looking for Spinoza: Joy, sorrow and the feeling brain. New York: Harcourt.Search in Google Scholar
Damasio, Antonio. 2010. Self comes to mind: Constructing the conscious brain. New York: Pantheon.Search in Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles. 1998 [1889]. The expression of the emotions in man and animals, 3rd edn. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195112719.002.0002Search in Google Scholar
Fuster, Joaquίn M. 2003. Cortex and mind: Unifying cognition. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Gabrielsson, Alf. 2010. Strong experiences with music. In P. N. Juslin & J. A. Sloboda (eds.), Handbook of music and emotion, 547–574. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199230143.003.0020Search in Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen J. & Elizabeth S. Vrba. 1982. Exaptation – a missing term in the science of form. Paleobiology 8(1). 4–15.10.1017/S0094837300004310Search in Google Scholar
Hadamard, Jacques. 1954. An essay on the psychology of invention in the mathematical field. New York: Dover.Search in Google Scholar
Hodges, Donald A. 2010. Psycho-physiological measures. In P. N. Juslin & J. A. Sloboda (eds.), Handbook of music and emotion, 279–311. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hume, David. 2002 [1739]. A treatise of human nature. Book 1: Of the understanding. D. F. Norton & M. J. Norton (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oseo/instance.00032872Search in Google Scholar
Jӓnig, Wilfred. 2003. The autonomic nervous system and its coordination by the brain. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer & H. H. Goldsmith (eds.), Handbook of affective sciences, 135–186. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195126013.003.0009Search in Google Scholar
Lane, Richard D. 2000. Neural correlates of conscious emotional experiences. In R. D. Lane & L. Nadel (eds.), Cognitive neuroscience of emotion, 345–370. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195118889.003.0015Search in Google Scholar
LeDoux, Joseph. 1996. The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. New York: Simon & Schuster.Search in Google Scholar
LeDoux, Joseph. 2002. Synaptic self: How our brains become who we are. New York: Penguin.Search in Google Scholar
Levenson, Robert W. 2003. Autonomic specificity and emotion. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer & H. H. Goldsmith (eds.), Handbook of affective sciences. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195126013.003.0011Search in Google Scholar
McNeill, William H. 1995. Keeping together in time: Dance and drill in human history. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Meyer, Leonard B. 1956. Emotion and meaning in music. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar
Meyer, Leonard B. 1973. Explaining music: Essays and explorations. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520333109Search in Google Scholar
Meyer, Leonard B. 2001. Music and emotion: Distinctions and uncertainties. In P. N. Juslin & J. A. Sloboda (eds.), Music and emotion: Theory and research, 341–360. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780192631886.003.0015Search in Google Scholar
Ӧhman, Arne & Stefan Wiens. 2003. On the automaticity of autonomic responses in emotion: An evolutionary perspective. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer & H. H. Goldsmith (eds.), Handbook of affective sciences, 256–275. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195126013.003.0013Search in Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles S. 1931–1966. The collected papers of Charles S. Peirce, 8 vols., C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss & A. W. Burks (eds.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Reference to Peirce’s papers will be designated CP followed by volume and paragraph number.].Search in Google Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. 2009. The tacit dimension. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar
Provine, Robert R. 2012. Curious behavior: Yawning, laughing, hiccupping, and beyond. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.10.4159/harvard.9780674067226Search in Google Scholar
Schnupp, Jan, Israel Nelken & Andrew King. 2011. Auditory neuroscience: Making sense of sound. Cambridge: The MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/7942.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Simon, Herbert A. 1996. The sciences of the artificial, 3rd edn. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Zatorre, Robert J. & Valorie N. Salimpoor. 2013. From perception to pleasure: Music and its neural substrates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110(suppl. 2). 10430–10437.10.1073/pnas.1301228110Search in Google Scholar
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Ejecting protestors, interpellating supporters: The interactional pragmatics of expulsion at Trump’s campaign rallies
- What is political semiotics and why does it matter? A reply to Janar Mihkelsaar
- Iconic processes and intermediality in the photobooks Silent Book and Sí por Cuba
- From shipwreck to constellation: Rethinking Meillassoux on Mallarmé from a semiotic perspective
- Umberto Eco’s semiotics of the text: Theoretical observations and an analysis of the parable of the banquet
- The search for the imperfect language
- Semiospheric translation types reconsidered from the translation semiotics perspective
- Voicing control: A child resource for “growing a head taller”
- Kenneth Waltz talks through Mark Rothko: Visual metaphors in the discipline of International Relations Theory
- The cultural transformation of the proprioceptive senses
- On the embodied meaning of emotional responses to music: A semiotic perspective
- Asemic typography in kinetic design
- Topological and networked visibility: Politics of seeing in the digital age
- A semiosic translation of Paul Celan’s Schwarze Flocken and Weggebeizt
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Ejecting protestors, interpellating supporters: The interactional pragmatics of expulsion at Trump’s campaign rallies
- What is political semiotics and why does it matter? A reply to Janar Mihkelsaar
- Iconic processes and intermediality in the photobooks Silent Book and Sí por Cuba
- From shipwreck to constellation: Rethinking Meillassoux on Mallarmé from a semiotic perspective
- Umberto Eco’s semiotics of the text: Theoretical observations and an analysis of the parable of the banquet
- The search for the imperfect language
- Semiospheric translation types reconsidered from the translation semiotics perspective
- Voicing control: A child resource for “growing a head taller”
- Kenneth Waltz talks through Mark Rothko: Visual metaphors in the discipline of International Relations Theory
- The cultural transformation of the proprioceptive senses
- On the embodied meaning of emotional responses to music: A semiotic perspective
- Asemic typography in kinetic design
- Topological and networked visibility: Politics of seeing in the digital age
- A semiosic translation of Paul Celan’s Schwarze Flocken and Weggebeizt