Goldstein’s survey showed that the category of elicitors with the highest frequency was musical passages although scenes in films and great beauty in nature are other typical elicitors. Goldstein 9, who was the first to study the phenomenon, asked participants about the psychological elicitors of chills. Chills occur not only in response to cold air or illness but also to strong emotional experiences 8. The chills refer to a set of bodily sensations, such as shivers or goose bumps. The current study takes a new perspective of peak emotional response to music, especially songs.Ĭhills are one form of peak emotional responses that have been investigated mainly in the domain of music and emotion (for a review, see refs 6 and 7). Therefore, many aspects of peak emotion are still not understood although the examination of peak emotion is important to further understanding the human emotional experience. However, research studies into emotion have mainly examined happiness, sadness, fear, valence, and arousal 4, 5. People seek art, regardless of culture and time, and many people expect such a peak emotional experience when appreciating art. Some people describe such an experience as ‘being moved’ 2 or ‘kandoh’ 3. Such emotion sometimes becomes intense, giving a peak emotional experience 1. People also experience emotion in response to art, film, and music. People experience emotion daily during interpersonal communication, a good or bad workday, and leisure activities. We believe that the distinction of two types of peak emotions is theoretically relevant and further study of tears would contribute to more understanding of human peak emotional response.Įmotion is an essential factor of human life. Because tears may have a cathartic effect, the functional significance of chills and tears seems to be different. These results show that tears involve pleasure from sadness and that they are psychophysiologically calming thus, psychophysiological responses permit the distinction between chills and tears. A tear-eliciting song was perceived as calmer than a chill-eliciting song. A song that induced chills was perceived as being both happy and sad whereas a song that induced tears was perceived as sad. A psychophysiological experiment showed that self-reported chills increased electrodermal activity and subjective arousal whereas tears produced slow respiration during heartbeat acceleration, although both chills and tears induced pleasure and deep breathing. The current research takes a new perspective of peak emotional response of tears (weeping, lump in the throat). However, many aspects of peak emotion are still not understood. Previous studies have demonstrated that the peak emotional experience of chills (goose bumps or shivers) when listening to music involves psychophysiological arousal and a rewarding effect. People sometimes experience a strong emotional response to artworks.
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