The challenge for emotion researchers has been to provide a theoretical framework that is able to accommodate the enormous diversity of emotion-related phenomena.
The purpose of this paper is to present an analytic framework for understanding auditory-evoked emotion. The framework has been crafted to be plausible from both neurophysiological and evolutionary perspectives.
Emotional experiences may be usefully characterized according to a six-part classification:
Reflexive. These are fast automatic physiological responses that resist conscious mediation. These include common auditory reflexes, such as the orienting response and the startle response.
Denotative. These are passively learned responses whose function is to allow the listener to identify sound sources. Limbic activations associated with auditory denotation are evident in Capgras Syndrome.
Connotative. These are passively learned responses that allow listeners to infer various physical properties about sounds such as size, proximity, energy, material, and mode of excitation. Connotations might also relate to common temporal patterns, such as a "galloping-like" sound or an "accelerating" sound.
Associative. These are arbitrary learned associations (often conditioned responses). Music-related examples include the "darling they're playing our song" phenomenon.
Empathetic. These responses center on two questions: Was the sound generated by an animate agent or some inanimate process? If caused by a human or animal, what state of mind is signalled by the sound? Auditory empathy, for example, allows the listener to detect fear or nervousness in a voice. A sound might be perceived as "cute" or "aggressive."
Critical. These are conscious cognitive processes by which the intentions of a sound-producing agent are evaluated for evidence of sincerity or deception.
This six-fold approach is used to analyze the experience of listening to Claude Debussy's "Syrinx" for flute.