Music Listening and Homeostatic Regulation: Surviving and Flourishing in a Sonic World

Mark Reybrouck, Piotr Podlipniak and David Welch
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Mark Reybrouck: Faculty of Arts, University of Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
Piotr Podlipniak: Institute of Musicology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, 61-712 Poznan, Poland
David Welch: Institute Audiology Section, School of Population Health, University of Auckland, Auckland 2011, New Zealand

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 19, issue 1, 1-24

Abstract: This paper argues for a biological conception of music listening as an evolutionary achievement that is related to a long history of cognitive and affective-emotional functions, which are grounded in basic homeostatic regulation. Starting from the three levels of description, the acoustic description of sounds, the neurological level of processing, and the psychological correlates of neural stimulation, it conceives of listeners as open systems that are in continuous interaction with the sonic world. By monitoring and altering their current state, they can try to stay within the limits of operating set points in the pursuit of a controlled state of dynamic equilibrium, which is fueled by interoceptive and exteroceptive sources of information. Listening, in this homeostatic view, can be adaptive and goal-directed with the aim of maintaining the internal physiology and directing behavior towards conditions that make it possible to thrive by seeking out stimuli that are valued as beneficial and worthy, or by attempting to avoid those that are annoying and harmful. This calls forth the mechanisms of pleasure and reward, the distinction between pleasure and enjoyment, the twin notions of valence and arousal, the affect-related consequences of music listening, the role of affective regulation and visceral reactions to the sounds, and the distinction between adaptive and maladaptive listening.

Keywords: homeostasis; adaptive behavior; musical-aesthetic experience; musical reward; hedonic pleasure; eudaimonic enjoyment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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