Abstract

One of the most commonly reported reasons for listening to music is simply because people find it enjoyable (Sanflippo et al., 2020). Despite aesthetic appreciation playing an important role in the motivation to listen to music, aesthetic responses to music have not been investigated as frequently as in other types of artistic modalities. This is perhaps due to the history of the field of music perception and cognition, which has traditionally focused more on basic perceptual functions and components of music, such as perception of pitch and rhythm, rather than aesthetic aspects of music listening. At this point, the study of music cognition and perception has spanned several decades, and music cognition is beginning to firmly establish itself as a key subfield within cognitive psychology and neuroscience more broadly. While the study of music cognition has continued to grow, it has done so somewhat in parallel with the psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts. Although the two research communities (that is, music cognition and empirical aesthetics) study similar topics using similar methods, the level of interaction between the two communities has been less than what one might expect. This could in part be due to the fact that the study of "aesthetics" tends to come from an academic tradition that is often considered to refer more specifically to the visual arts or visual stimuli more broadly (e.g., Arnheim, 1966; Berlyne, 1971), or at least that may be the perception researchers have of the work done under the banner of the "psychology of aesthetics"

Department(s)

Psychological Science

Publication Status

Open Access

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1931-390X; 1931-3896

Document Type

Editorial

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2023 American Psychological Association, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2023

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Psychology Commons

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