David Huron
Society for Music Perception and Cognition Conference, 1997.
What makes something sound "cute" or "intimate?" What makes a voice sound "friendly" or "untrustworthy?" The modern study of emotions is often regarded as beginning with Darwin's Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). Although innumerable studies have been carried out in the past century, until recently, research on human emotion has been something of an incoherent mess. However, notable advances have been made in the past decade in unraveling some of the fundamental processes involved.
Although much of the research has investigated facial expression, a considerable volume of research has illuminated various aspects of audition and music.
This talk presents a survey of the extant experimental research on how sound activates the limbic system. The presentation will include both neurophysiological and cognitive aspects of emotions. Topics will include basic and secondary emotions, the auditory disgust and pleasure responses, intrinsic and expressive emotions, developmental and evolutionary aspects, ecological acoustics, expectation, misattribution, and personality correlates.
The research is discussed with reference to a three-level model of human emotion. These levels are (1) the autonomic level, (2) the denotative/connotative level, and (3) the interpretive/critical level. Case studies from the medical literature are used to illustrate how the experience of music listening can be transformed by particular pathological conditions affecting the limbic system.