Abstract
Previous studies examined feeling chills as peak emotional experiences when listening to music. However, it is said qualitatively that feeling tears are another peak emotion to music. We measured chills and tears in response to music, using a questionnaire survey, and the responses were classified into different groups quantitatively. Our results corroborated previous studies, by indicating that chills were related to acoustic features of music. Moreover, we found tears were related to the lyrical content of songs. Then, we developed the Empathy for Lyrics Scale (ELS) to assess the degree of a personʼs empathy with the lyrical content of songs and confirmed the validity of the ELS. Subsequently, we examined the relationship between ELS scores and chills and tears in response to music. Results indicated that empathy, when listeners project their thought to the lyrical content of songs, was significantly related to tears. These results suggest that feeling tears as a peak emotional response to music is a different from chills, and tears were strongly associated with the lyrical contents.
