Apart from music, gooseflesh (piloerection) can be evoked in many other situations.
Gooseflesh can occur when experiencing fear
(such as hearing an unknown sound while walking
alone in a dark alley), when viewing disgusting photographs, during orgasm, or in response to
fingernails scratching a blackboard (Halpern, et al., 1986). Of course gooseflesh is a common
response when we are
cold, but paradoxically, it can also arise when immersing ourselves in a
hot bath. Gooseflesh can also be evoked by physical contact with another person, when
experiencing a sudden insight (such as an unexpected solution to a problem), while observing an
inspiring moment in a competitive sport, or when experiencing great natural beauty, such as
viewing a large canyon (Goldstein, 1980).
Notice that the experience of gooseflesh can be either pleasant or unpleasant. The term
“frisson” however, applies only to
the pleasure
-inducing form. Simply put, “frisson” might be defined as “pleasurable piloerection” or “enjoyable gooseflesh.” 10. Individual Differences
Not everyone experiences music
-induced frisson. Avram Goldstein (1980) carried out a
survey of 45 employees of a research center unconnected to music. Achieving a 100% return
rate, 21 (47%) reported never having experienced a music
-
induced “thrill.” Similarly, Grewe etal. (2007) found that only 21 of 38 participants (55%) reported music
-
induced “chills.” After
careful pretesting of stimulus materials, Konenč i et al. (2007) were able to reliably induce “thrills” in only 35% of an undergraduate student
sample. By contrast, 90% of the music students
included in Goldstein's study reported having experienced mus
ic
-
induced “thrills.” It appears that only about half of the general population may be familiar with the experience. It may be that
the capacity to experience music
-
induced frisson encourages certain people to pursue a career in
music.
Panksepp (1995) and
others have observed that music
-
induced frisson is more likely to be
reported by female listeners compared with male listeners. In addition to gender differences,
personality differences have been observed by Grewe, Nagel, Kopiez, and Altenmüller (2007).
As measured using the Sensation Seeking Scale (Litle & Zuckerman, 1986), “chill responders”
are less adventurous or thrill
-
seeking. That is, reactive listeners are less likely to enjoy physical risk
-
taking, such as skydiving or riding rollercoasters. One might say these listeners are “moresensitive” or “thin
-
skinned.” Grewe and his colleagues also found that the more reactive listeners
have greater familiarity with classical music, identify more with the music they prefer, and are
more likely to listen to
music in concentrated (rather than background) situations. In short,
susceptibility to music
-
induced frisson is correlated with musical interest.
Listeners who experience music - induced frisson are typically able to point to particular moments in a work whe n the frisson is evoked (Sloboda,
1991). This specificity has naturally attracted researchers to search for musical features that might be responsible for the frisson. These efforts
have been confounded, however, by poor inter - listener consistency (e.g. B lood & Zatorre, 2001). Early on, investigators discovered that musical
works that evoke frisson for the experimenter often fail to evoke frisson in other listeners. Asking participants to bring their own frisson -
inducing music reinforced this discovery: wh en participant - selected music is employed as stimuli, listener's inevitably experience more frisson in
response to their own music than to music brought by other participants. Moreover, when different listeners experienced frisson in the same work, the
poi nts of frisson can differ.