Skip to main content
Book cover

Sound and the Aesthetics of Play pp 89–117Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Modes of Affective and Aesthetic Experience

  • 412 Accesses

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

Abstract

In this chapter I separate our experience into our different mental states to look at the constituent mental processes of aesthetic experiences where meaning-making can occur. Experience through language is very important in Gadamer’s hermeneutics, and he has been quoted as saying, “Being that can be understood is language” (Truth and Method. London and New York: Continuum, 2004, 470). In support of this, conscious emotional experiences are greatly impacted by the ways that an individual uses vocabulary, concepts, and categories. Diverging from this, aesthetic experiences that have a focus on nonconscious processing are constructed through how our affective survival circuits act in response to challenges or opportunities that we face. Contrasting from this, prereflective aesthetic practices result from a synthesis between behavioural responses and autonomic bodily responses, and can be experienced as non-verbalized feelings.

Keywords

  • Language
  • Peircean semiotics
  • Affect theory
  • Affective practice
  • Pre-reflective experience

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-66899-4_4
  • Chapter length: 29 pages
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • ISBN: 978-3-319-66899-4
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Hardcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abbate, Carolyn. 2004. Music? Drastic or Gnostic? Critical Inquiry 30 (3): 505–536. https://doi.org/10.1086/421160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blackman, Lisa. 2013. Immaterial Bodies. London: SAGE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blackman, L., and C. Venn. 2010. Affect. Body & Society 16 (1): 7–28.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Bradshaw, Malia. 2016. A Return to Self: Depersonalization and How to Overcome It. Amazon Digital Services. https://www.amazon.com/Return-Self-Depersonalization-How-Overcome-ebook/dp/B01N559E94

  • Carver, C.S., and M.F. Scheier. 2009. Action, Affect, and Two-Mode Models of Functioning. In Oxford Handbook of Human Action, ed. Ezequiel Morsella, John A. Bargh, and Peter M. Gollwitzer, 298–327. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Çorlu, Muzaffer, Chris Muller, Frank Desmet, and Marc Leman. 2015. The Consequences of Additional Cognitive Load on Performing Musicians. Psychology of Music 43 (4): 495–510. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735613519841.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cuffari, Elena Clare, Ezequiel Di Paolo, and Hanne De Jaegher. 2014. From Participatory Sense-Making to Language: There and Back Again. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14 (4): 1089–1125. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-014-9404-9.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Damasio, Antonio R. 2010. Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. New York: Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeNora, Tia. 2003. After Adorno. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Evans, Nicholas, and Stephen C. Levinson. 2009. The Myth of Language Universals: Language Diversity and Its Importance for Cognitive Science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32 (5): 429–448. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999094X.

  • Everett, Daniel L. 2005. Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language. Current Anthropology 46 (4): 621–646. https://doi.org/10.1086/431525.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Felski, Rita. 2011. Context Stinks! New Literary History 42 (4): 573–591. https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2011.0045.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 2004. Truth and Method. Translated by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. London and New York: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grahn, Jessica A., and Matthew Brett. 2007. Rhythm and Beat Perception in Motor Areas of the Brain. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 19 (5): 893–906. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2007.19.5.893.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Grosz, Elizabeth. 2011. Becoming Undone. Durham: Duke University Press.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Hayles, N. Katherine. 2017. Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, Martin. 2001. Being and Time. Translated by John MacQuarrie and Edward Robinson. Bodmin, Cornwall: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Innis, Robert E. 2001. Perception, Interpretation, and the Signs of Art. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 15 (1): 20–32. https://doi.org/10.1353/jsp.2001.0002.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Juslin, Patrik N., and Petri Laukka. 2003. Communication of Emotions in Vocal Expression and Music Performance: Different Channels, Same Code? Psychological Bulletin 129 (5): 770–814. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.5.770.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Juslin, Patrik N., and John A. Sloboda. 2011. Handbook of Music and Emotion: Theory, Research, Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Juslin, Patrik N., and Daniel Västfjäll. 2008. Emotional Responses to Music: The Need to Consider Underlying Mechanisms. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31 (5): 559–575. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X08005293.

    Google Scholar 

  • Juslin, Patrik N., Lázlo Harmat, and Tuomas Eerola. 2013. What Makes Music Emotionally Significant? Exploring the Underlying Mechanisms. Psychology of Music, 1–25, August. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735613484548.

  • Koelsch, Stefan, Arthur M. Jacobs, Winfried Menninghaus, Katja Liebal, Gisela Klann-Delius, Christian von Scheve, and Gunter Gebauer. 2015. The Quartet Theory of Human Emotions: An Integrative and Neurofunctional Model. Physics of Life Reviews 13 (June): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2015.03.001.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Kouider, Sid, and Stanislas Dehaene. 2007. Levels of Processing During Non-Conscious Perception: A Critical Review of Visual Masking. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 362 (1481): 857–875. The Royal Society. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2007.2093.

  • Kramer, Lawrence. 2011. Interpreting Music. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2016. The Thought of Music. Oakland: University of California Press.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Krueger, Joel. 2011. Enacting Musical Content. In Situated Aesthetics: Art Beyond the Skin, ed. Riccardo Manzotti, 63–85. Imprint Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Langer, S.K. 1953. Feeling and Form; a Theory of Art Developed From Philosphy in a New Key. Journal of Philosophy 52 (11): 291–296.

    Google Scholar 

  • LeDoux, Joseph. 2015. Anxious. London: Oneworld Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massumi, Brian. 2002. Parables for the Virtual. Durham: Duke University Press.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Mercier, Hugo, and Dan Sperber. 2011. Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (2): 57–74. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X10000968.

  • Nancy, Jean-Luc. 1998. The Sense of the World. Translated by Jeffrey S. Librett. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pulvermüller, Friedemann, and Luciano Fadiga. 2010. Active Perception: Sensorimotor Circuits as a Cortical Basis for Language. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11 (5): 351–360. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2811.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Smorti, Andrea, and Chiara Fioretti. 2015. Why Narrating Changes Memory: A Contribution to an Integrative Model of Memory and Narrative Processes. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science 50 (2): 296–319. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-015-9330-6.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Tanaka, Shogo. in press. What Is It Like To Be Disconnected from the Body?: A Phenomenological Account of Disembodiment in Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder. Journal of Consciousness Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, William F. 2013. Music, Action, and Affect. In The Emotional Power of Music: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Arousal, Expression, and Social Control, ed. Tom Cochrane, Bernardino Fantini, and Klaus R. Scherer, 197–212. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Toner, John, and Aidan Moran. 2015. In Praise of Conscious Awareness. In Psychological Perspectives on Expertise, ed. Guillermo Campitelli, Michael H. Connors, Merim Bilalić, and David Zachary Hambrick, 232–236. A New Framework of the Investigation of “Continuous Improvement” in Expert Athletes. Frontiers Media SA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turino, Thomas. 1999. Signs of Imagination, Identity, and Experience: A Peircian Semiotic Theory for Music. Ethnomusicology 43 (2): 221–255. https://doi.org/10.2307/852734.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Valsiner, J. 2006. The Overwhelming World: Functions of Pleromatization in Creating Diversity in Cultural and Natural Constructions. International Summer School of Semiotic and Structural Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vélez, D.V. 2017. Review of Lawrence Kramer, the Thought of Music (University of California Press, 2016). Music Theory Online 23 (1).

    Google Scholar 

  • Wetherell, Margaret. 2012. Affect and Emotion. Los Angeles and London: SAGE.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2013. Affect and Discourse—What’s the Problem? From Affect as Excess to Affective/Discursive Practice. Subjectivity 6 (4): 349–368. Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2013.13.

  • Witek, Maria A.G., Eric F. Clarke, Mikkel Wallentin, Morten L. Kringelbach, and Peter Vuust. 2014. Syncopation, Body-Movement and Pleasure in Groove Music. PLoS One 9 (4): e94446. Edited by Rouwen Canal-Bruland. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0094446.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

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

    Justin Christensen

Authors
  1. Justin Christensen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Christensen, J. (2018). Modes of Affective and Aesthetic Experience. In: Sound and the Aesthetics of Play. Palgrave Studies in Sound. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66899-4_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66899-4_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-66898-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-66899-4

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)