Scientists Solved The Mystery Behind Why Music Gives Some People Chills

Have you ever listened to a new song or been at a concert and felt goosebumps rise up on your arms. Suddenly, you get a chill like a cool gust of wind passed along your shoulders. It can be a beautiful part of experiencing and becoming immersed in music. There is actually a scientific term for such a phenomenon: frisson. However, not everyone encounters this sensation. While it is not fully understood why some have proclivities toward frisson, and others do not, correlational research suggests that differential connectivity among the parts of the brain that control sensory perception could play a role.

Frisson resulting from music is a key area of interest because music is present in all known cultures throughout history, suggesting there is an evolutionary benefit to engaging in the practice. However, frisson can be experienced in response to any salient aesthetic experience, and it has long interested scientists through its ability to cause a tactile sensation without touch, instead relying on an internal sense. A physical feeling that results from an emotion is called a somatic marker. Other somatic markers would be the butterflies in your stomach feeling in response to anticipation or the nausea that accompanies a feeling of disgust. In French, the word frisson means "to shiver," and was first used in English to describe the thrill derived from art in 1777 by Horace Walpole, a politician and author.

There is no exact consensus in the scientific community as to how music causes chills. Some research has linked frisson to activity in the areas of the brain involved in reward, like the nucleus accumbens and medial prefrontal cortex. However, as mentioned above, while reward circuitry is found in all people, frisson isn't experienced by everyone. So, what primes certain people for this response as opposed to others?

Some studies have shown a correlation between frisson and certain personality traits, like openness to experience, as defined by the Big Five personality test. But other studies have contradicted these results, making the personality hypothesis somewhat controversial. Others point to musical ability as modulating one's likelihood of experiencing musical chills, but this has not been shown to successfully predict whether frisson occurs.

Some compelling data emerged from a 2016 paper published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. This study relied on diffusion tensor imaging, which utilizes the movement of water through white matter in the brain to analyze the connectivity between various structures. The researchers found that subjects who developed chills in response to music had higher connectivity between auditory processing areas of the brain in the posterior superior temporal gyrus and those involved in emotion, such as the medial prefrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens, and the anterior insula. These results suggest that the differences in the white matter of our brain determine whether we experience frisson.

Interestingly, some research has highlighted certain acoustic qualities that are more likely to induce frisson than others. So, if you're a musician looking to elicit chills at your next performance, it might be helpful to understand the physics behind such sounds. Features like frequency and volume potentially play a big role.

A study published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology declared that "dark, loud, and compact sounds induce frisson." Essentially, sounds that feel loud and close and possess a warmer and punchier tone are more likely to cause chills. While the sounds used in the experiment — brushing and tapping — were not what we would generally classify as music, these principles could theoretically be applied to songwriting.

Research has also suggested that frisson is especially triggered by a divergence from our expectations. For instance, an unexpected harmony or change in melody commonly results in chills. Similarly, an alteration of the rhythm or tempo can increase the chance of frisson. Appoggiaturas are also a strong contender, introducing a dissonant accent note and resolving stepwise to a tone belonging to the chord being played. If you would like more examples, a group of researchers actually put together a Spotify playlist full of songs that frequently lead to goosebumps and shivers.