The origins of the aesthetic enjoyment of music
Subtitle
A review of the literature
Publication date
2009-09-01
Document type
Forschungsartikel
Author
Organisational unit
Universität Leipzig, Institut für Allgemeine Psychologie
ISSN
Series or journal
Musicae Scientiae
Periodical volume
13
Periodical issue
Special Issue/2_suppl
First page
15
Last page
39
Peer-reviewed
âś…
Part of the university bibliography
Nein
Keyword
Empirical aesthetics
Music emotion
Pleasure
Adaptation
Neuroscience of music
Abstract
Listeners attribute a positive or negative value to music. This aesthetic experience is known to be observable over the individuals’ entire life span, from early childhood to old age, and in every culture. It is then often concluded that such an aesthetic experience constitutes part of the human nature, having an important biological foundation. This assumption leads to the question of how aesthetic experience of music originated in the biological evolution. In this paper, we will explore this question in the light of evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and systems neuroscience. After reviewing the existing proposals, we conclude that the explanation of the origin of aesthetic experience in music is likely to involve a more heterogeneous set of biological mechanisms than what is often assumed.
Version
Published version
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Metadata only access