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Musical Emotions

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Sound and the Aesthetics of Play

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Sound ((PASTS))

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Abstract

Emotions are described as brief reactions that have the ability to influence our body reactions, action tendencies, and appraisals, directing our motivations and our attention. In this way, emotions can be seen to help us construct our reality, perhaps similar in the ways that aesthetic experiences help to co-construct our reality. There have been three categories of proposed methods for how emotions might act during an emotional response to the world. Discrete emotion theory proposes that emotions are caused by discrete, universal, innate processes, while appraisal theories suggest that dedicated emotion detection mechanisms recognize the cognitive activity that represents a particular emotion, whereas constructive theories of emotion hypothesize that emotions emerge as a process of meaning-making from sensory stimulation, memory, and basic affective processes.

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  1. Music & Sound Knowledge Group, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Justin Christensen

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Christensen, J. (2018). Musical Emotions. In: Sound and the Aesthetics of Play. Palgrave Studies in Sound. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66899-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66899-4_2

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