Abstract
This study quantitatively examines the relationship between physical reactions and strong experiences when listening to music. First, five physical reactions that are frequently experienced (goose pimples, lump in the throat, shivers down the spine, tears and arousal) were selected as evaluation items for the main experiment based on questionnaire results. Through another pilot study, two musical excerpts were selected that produce distinct impressions. In the main experiment, 150 participants evaluated the strengths of their physical reactions and emotional experiences due to listening to music. The results indicate that there were significant high correlations between the ratings for all five physical reactions and ratings of strong experiences due to the music. These findings suggest that each physical reaction is highly related to strong experiences due to listening to music. Moreover, there were high correlation coefficients between the average ratings for these subjectively-measured physical reactions and ratings of strong experiences for both musical excerpts. The present findings suggest that a combination of these physical reactions is highly related to strong experiences when listening to music.
