place: meeting room 2, studenternes hus

aarhus university

Tearing of the eyes, nasal congestion, constriction in your throat, and erratic breathing: your doctor would conclude that you are suffering from a severe allergic reaction.  But in special circumstances, music can evoke precisely such symptoms. How  does music evoke feelings akin to sadness or grief? And why do people willingly listen to music that may make them feel sad or even cry? In this presentation, I briefly survey physiological and behavioral aspects of adult crying, and discuss the musical factors that contribute to evoking sadness and grief. Musical cues for sadness parallel precisely known prosodic cues for sad speech.

The hormone prolactin is normally associated with pregnancy and lactation but is also released during episodes of weeping or incipient weeping in both males and females. Prolactin produces "consoling" hedonic effects that appear to limit the experience of psychic pain normally caused by the perception of loss. When weeping is provoked by "sham" loss, a cognitive appraisal ultimately deems the sense of grief benign, leaving only the consoling hedonic effect of the prolactin. The result is that a listener can experience a cathartic, enjoyable, or "good" cry. In short, I suggest that the pleasure of musically-induced weeping arises from cortical inhibition of the amygdala, linked with the release of prolactin.

time: 1:15 pm

date: may 26th (monday)

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