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AUTHOR: Bashwiner, David M.

TITLE: Have No Fear: The Amygdala in Music Theory
KEYWORDS: music, emotion, amygdala, neuroscience, fear, Erdmann and Becce, John
Williams, Giuseppe Verdi, Peter Kivy, Eduard Hanslick.
ABSTRACT: Music is frequently employed, in the laboratory as well as the cinema, to
portray and arouse fear. The neurological structure most commonly associated with fear
is the amygdala, and the amygdala is frequently implicated in studies of musical emotion.
But not all fears are amygdala-based, nor are all amygdala-based emotions of the “fear”
type. Through analyses of laboratory stimuli, Erdmann and Becce’s corpus of early film
music, passages from Verdi’s Requiem, and a sequence from the film Jaws, this essay
explores both what scary music is in the structural sense and what it does when it
encounters the amygdala. The argument is that fear is a messy concept in its mapping
onto both music and neural structures like the amygdala. A different manner of affective
analysis is envisioned, in which musical structure and affect-associated brain regions are
mapped directly onto one another, eliminating the messy middleman of folk-
psychological concepts like “scariness” and “fear.” On this (admittedly speculative)
model, affect can still be investigated as a contributor to musical experience, but in a
potentially more precise, less impressionistic way.

Author Header
David M. Bashwiner
University of New Mexico
Department of Music
MSC04 2570
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
dbashwin@unm.edu

List of Accompanying Files

bashwiner_HNF2_examples.pdf
 HAVE NO FEAR: THE AMYGDALA IN MUSIC THEORY

Some things we all tend to agree to be obvious are just not so.
- Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained

Abstract:
Music is frequently employed, in the laboratory as well as the cinema, to
portray and arouse fear. The neurological structure most commonly
associated with fear is the amygdala, and the amygdala is frequently
implicated in studies of musical emotion. But not all fears are amygdala-
based, nor are all amygdala-based emotions of the “fear” type. Through
analyses of laboratory stimuli, Erdmann and Becce’s corpus of early film
music, passages from Verdi’s Requiem, and a sequence from the film
Jaws, this essay explores both what scary music is in the structural sense
and what it does when it encounters the amygdala. The argument is that
fear is a messy concept in its mapping onto both music and neural
structures like the amygdala. A different manner of affective analysis is
envisioned, in which musical structure and affect-related brain regions are
mapped directly onto one another, eliminating the messy middleman of
folk-psychological concepts like “scariness” and “fear.” On this
(admittedly speculative) model, emotion can still be investigated as a
contributor to musical experience, but in a potentially more precise, less
impressionistic way.
Keywords: music; emotion; amygdala; neuroscience; scariness; fear;
Erdmann and Becce, Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik; John
Williams, Jaws; Giuseppe Verdi, Messa da Requiem; Peter Kivy; Eduard
Hanslick

[1.1] An article emerging just over a decade ago from the BRAMS laboratory at the
University of Montreal, under lead author Nathalie Gosselin, bears the following title:
“Impaired Recognition of Scary Music Following Unilateral Temporal Lobe Excision.” 1
To the traditional music theorist, this title may not leap provocatively off the page. But it
should. Translated into everyday language, it states that a brain region exists which, when
removed, leads to the impaired recognition of “scary music.”
[1.2] To the scientist, this finding—and the approach taken to arrive at it—may seem
relatively ho-hum. The brain structure implicated—the amygdala—has been associated
for almost a century with the experience and recognition of emotion, particularly negative

1 Gosselin et al. (2005).

2
emotions like fear. Functional imaging studies (such as fMRI and PET2) frequently report
enhanced amygdala activity when normal (non-brain-damaged) participants are presented
with faces and voices expressing fear. 3 And reciprocally, patients with damaged
amygdalae show impairment in recognizing precisely such stimuli.4 Inquiring whether
such impairments extend to the realm of music—and more generally whether the
amygdala is involved in musical experience—therefore follows logically.
[1.3] But logical or not, for the music theorist, the questions raised may quickly
outnumber those answered. For instance, what is “scary music”? What are the these
authors referring to when they use this term, and would a music theorist agree that such
music is genuinely “scary”? If so, what are this music’s structural features, and are they
characteristic of scary music generally or idiosyncratic to this stimulus set? When
listeners hear this music, are they merely recognizing scariness/fear in the music heard, or
are they experiencing it? And what if anything can be determined about how and why
music of this sort portrays/arouses such feelings? Is it due solely to the listener’s
familiarity with the clichés of film and television scoring, or might there be natural,
innate tendencies within the auditory system leading one to hear certain sounds in certain
affective ways?5
[1.4] Assuming that our answers to this first set of questions are productive—that music
can arouse emotion; that fear can be one such emotion; and that the “scary music” used in
this laboratory study is similar enough to scary music generally for its results to
generalize—a new set of questions arises. If the amygdala is actually recruited during
experiences of musical “fear” and “scariness,” what is this brain structure, and what does
it do? What causes its involvement, and what are its effects? Do these effects have
noticeable impact on experience itself, or are they too subtle—too inaccessible to
consciousness—to be of aesthetic significance? In other words, is the amygdala’s
involvement in musical experience of interest only to scientists, or is there food for
music-theoretical thought here as well?
[1.5] The aim of the present essay is to address these and related questions, overtly with
respect to fear and scariness, but ultimately intended to generalize to music’s relationship
to the emotions writ large. The first section addresses whether music arouses emotions at
all, or rather merely resembles or represents them. Granting that music does seem (in
some cases) to arouse certain emotions, the second section inquires as to whether fear is
among them. Again granting that, at least in some cases, music does seem capable of

2
fMRI = functional magnetic resonance imaging; PET = positron emission tomography.
For a review of brain imaging in music generally, see Koelsch (2013, 79–86); for a
review specifically targeting musical emotion, see Koelsch, Siebel, and Fritz (2010).
3 Aubé et al. (2014), Bach et al. (2008a), Domínguez-Borràs et al. (2009), Fecteau et al.
(2007), Frühholz et al. (2014), Sander et al. (2005).
4 Gosselin et al. (2005, 2007, 2011), Hariri et al. (2002), Hsieh et al. (2012), Scott et al.
(1997).
5These questions are of interest outside the field music theory, of course. For a
multidisciplinary approach, see Juslin and Sloboda (2010).

3
arousing (or enhancing) fear, the third section investigates the structural parameters of
such music, while the fourth through sixth reveal difficulties in generalizing from such
music-structural observations. Proposing that these difficulties may in part be
terminological, centered upon inconsistent and impressionistic usage of terms like “fear”
and “scariness,” the remaining sections propose a novel perspective on the music-
emotion interface, which largely side-steps the use of emotion terminology, and instead
investigates music’s interface with brain mechanics more directly. Just as “fear” was
chosen as the sample emotion in the first part of the paper, the amygdala is chosen as the
sample neurological structure for the second part. An overview of the amygdala’s history
of implication in emotion-based neuroscientific research is first offered, followed by an
overview of its involvement in musical research, and then a more focused look at
mechanically what the amygdala does when it is incorporated into the neural processing
stream. The final section (prior to a brief conclusion) argues that these mechanics are not
merely so low-level as to have no bearing on higher-level concerns such as music
appreciation and aesthetics: if emotions influence thinking, and music influences the
emotions, then however “low” the mechanics of music’s effects on the emotion circuitry,
thinking is possibly if not probably impacted as well. Thinking does not take place in an
emotionless vacuum, 6 in other words—particularly not, we can assume, musical thinking.

DOES MUSIC AROUSE EMOTIONS?

[2.1] The question of whether music arouses emotion is an ancient one. The fact that the
anonymous author of the Hibeh papyrus felt it necessary, in the fourth century BCE, to
insist that “the chromatic cannot make cowards nor the enharmonic make brave men of
those who employ it” indicates that others of the time period did believe such things (as
of course Plato and Aristotle did).7 Six centuries later, we find Sextus Empiricus similarly
dismissing as mere “superstition” the belief that “some of the mele are exciting to the
soul and others are restraining.” 8

6 Zajonc (1980).
7 Anon. (1984, 183). According to the Socrates of Plato’s Republic, for instance (book
III, chapters 10-11), the Mixolydian and Intense Lydian were dirgelike, the Ionian and
Lydian soft and convivial, the Dorian imitative of “the utterances and accents of a brave
man who is engaged in warfare,” and the Phrygian imitative of “such a man [when]
engaged in works of peace, not enforced but voluntary” (10–11). Such imitations can be
considered relevant to arousal proper given Socrates’ statement shortly thereafter that
“more than anything else rhythm and harmonia find their way to the inmost soul and take
strongest hold upon it” (14). Similarly, Aristotle, in the Politics (book VIII, ch. 5), opines
that “everybody when listening to imitations is thrown into a corresponding state of
feeling” (28).
8 Sextus Empiricus (1998, 99–100).

4
[2.2] Were it not so common, it would surely seem outlandish to believe that music can
do such miraculous things as heal wounds, regulate the heart rate and blood pressure,
teach proper ethical behavior and attitudes, and arouse and modulate the emotions. 9
Regarding this latter, most people do seem to believe that music can and does do this (see
below), but a number of philosophical challenges to this idea have arisen and are
important to address. Perhaps most influentially, aesthetician Eduard Hanslick argued in
the mid-to-late nineteenth century that the emotions aroused by music, though they exist,
are irrelevant to aesthetical concerns. Calling emotional listening “pathological,” he
heralded “aesthetical listening” as “the only artistic, true form [of listening].” On
Hanslick’s view, aesthetical listening consisted of the “pure contemplation” of “tonally
moving forms,”10 while emotions were irrelevant—indeed distracting:

In pure contemplation the hearer takes in nothing but the piece of music
being played; every material interest must be set aside. The tendency to
allow the feelings to become aroused is an interest of that sort.11

The more powerfully an effect from a work of art overwhelms us

physically (and hence is pathological), the more negligible is its
aesthetical component. 12

[2.3] Present-day philosopher Peter Kivy has taken a perspective on musical emotion that
in some ways resembles Hanslick’s while in other ways differs. Like Hanslick, Kivy
believes that to feel an emotion while listening to music is to be distracted—to not be
listening properly.13 However, unlike Hanslick—and rather surprisingly given this
stance—Kivy does not believe emotion to be irrelevant to musical experience. While for
Hanslick emotions are aroused by music but irrelevant, Kivy believes the opposite: that
emotions are relevant to music, but not aroused by it. As elucidated elsewhere, 14 the
support Kivy offers for this argument is flimsy, amounting to, in the end, a definition of
terms. For Kivy, an emotion is something that is necessarily aroused by a belief about an
object.15 He calls this “the ordinary way” in which emotion is aroused, and he states that,

9 West (2000), Solomon (1981), Bashwiner (2010, 4–56).

10 Hanslick (1986, 4, 29). See also Bashwiner (2011).
11 Ibid. (7). The translation is by Geoffrey Payzant.
12 Ibid. (57).
13 For example: “Now many readers may think that, again, I am over-intellectualizing the
listening experience, which is often thought of as more like a semi-conscious, dreamy
reverie in which one is bathed, as it were, in sound. That, of course, is a way of listening
to music (or, rather, a way of not listening to it)” (Kivy 2002, 80).
14
Bashwiner (2010, 77–82, 84–89).
15 Kivy (1990, 165).

5
if music arouses emotion, “it must do so in just [this] ordinary way.”16 In response to
philosopher Peter Mew—who proposes that perhaps music is a special case and emotions
are aroused at first objectlessly, inspiring a search for appropriate objects only
secondarily17—Kivy’s only recourse is to double down on his definitions. Emotions, on
his insistence, must be aroused by beliefs about objects—otherwise they are not
emotions. Similarly, music, if it arouses emotion, is (for Kivy) not music: “music is an
object of the mind at no matter what level it is appreciated,” he states. “When it ceases to
be that, as when soft, soothing sounds calm a babe in arms, it ceases to be music.”18
[2.4] As I see it, the question of whether music arouses emotion is an empirical one—at
least one that profoundly benefits from the consideration of empirical findings. As stated
earlier, the belief that music arouses emotion is widespread. Juslin and Laukka, in a study
of everyday listening behavior, found that between 47% and 67% of participants reported
using music “often” to change moods, match moods, vent emotions, and evoke emotional
memories.19 Similarly, Tia DeNora, in a study of the function of music in everyday life,
found that “nearly all the [participants] spoke explicitly about music’s role as an ordering
device at the ‘personal’ level, as a means for creating, enhancing, sustaining, and
changing subjective, cognitive, bodily, and self-conceptualized states.”20
[2.5] Such listeners could be wrong, as many philosophers have proposed: the feelings
could be “imagined”;21 or they might be real but not the “garden variety emotions.” 22
However, if this is the case for musical emotion, it is just as likely the case for emotion
generally. Emotions are, by definition, subjective experiences and thus cannot be studied
directly by way of objective methods. But indirectly they can be studied in the form of
their behavioral, physiological, and neurological correlates. In a review of 158 studies of
physiological responses to music, Donald Hodges reports a wide variety of such
responses, all correlated with emotion (in non-music studies), such as changes in heart
rate, blood pressure, blood volume, breathing rate, breathing depth, galvanic skin
response, muscular tension, and levels of hormones and neurotransmitters.23 In a review
focused specifically on hormone and neuromodulator levels, Chanda and Levitin report a
vast number of music-induced effects, such as upon cortisol, prolactin, oxytocin,
norepinephrine, epinephrine, beta-endorphin, interleukin 6, and immunoglobulin-A.24

16 Ibid.
17 Mew (1985).
18Kivy (1989, 216); see also Kivy (1990, 41). Hanslick makes a similar claim: “The
instant music is put to use merely as a means to produce a certain mood in us or as an
accessory or an ornament, it ceases to be effective as pure art” (1986, 66).
19 Juslin and Laukka (2004).
20 DeNora (2010, 169).
21 Walton (1997).
22 Kivy (1989, 1990).
23 Hodges (2010).
24 Chanda and Levitin (2013).

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Music is so effective at regulating these neuromodulator levels, in fact, that it
demonstrably reduces anxiety in surgical patients, and reduces patient reliance on
medication for treating pain.25
[2.6] Such effects are thus surely “real.” Whether they are “emotional” is a different
matter, but again, empirical evidence gives us little reason to believe they are not. The
feeling of pleasure, for instance (which many would consider an emotion26), manifests
similarly in the brain whether it is aroused by food, drink, sex, drugs, or music. 27 As will
be seen shortly, the case for fear is more or less the same—although the situation
becomes more complicated for other reasons. 28
[2.7] For now, suffice it to say the following: Listeners genuinely believe they feel
something like emotion when listening to music. Rather than questioning whether that
something is really an emotion (according to an idiosyncratic, a priori definition), I
prefer to assume that it is, and thus grant that listeners experience real emotions when
listening to music. We now turn to a consideration of whether fear is one such emotion.

DOES MUSIC AROUSE FEAR?

[3.1] The following lyrics, if read in a book of poetry, or heard in a spoken word
performance, might raise the hairs on the back of your neck:
You try to scream
But terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze
As horror looks you right between the eyes
You’re paralyzed.
As performed by Michael Jackson in the song “Thriller,” however, these lyrics are more
likely to find you singing along with the “night creatures,” joining “the dead . . . in their
masquerade,” perhaps even wishing you could take Michael up on the offer to “cuddle

25 Bringman et al. (2009), Dobek et al. (2014).

26For an excellent discussion from multiple perspectives, see the opening chapter of
Pleasures of the Brain (Kringelbach and Berridge 2010).
27Blood and Zatorre (2001), Kringelbach and Berridge (2010), Salimpoor et al. (2013). I
write similarly but not identically. For valuable perspective consider that of Hansen et al.
(2016).
28 It is traditional in writings of this sort to invest overmuch in defining the term
“emotion,” contrasting it with other experiential phenomena, such as “mood,” “affect,”
and “feeling.” For an introduction to the psychological issues, see Sloboda and Juslin
(2010); for a clear presentation of a neurobiological stance with which my own closely
aligns, see Panksepp (2003); for Panksepp’s take on fear specifically, see Panksepp
(2004).

7
close together.”29 In other words, when put to music, these lyrics seem to lose their ability
to frighten, eliciting something like pleasure instead.
[3.2] This finding—that music evokes pleasure more readily than fear—is a recurrent
theme in the psychological literature. Early studies of musical emotion did not investigate
music’s relationship to fear, 30 the first to do so apparently being that of Melvin Rigg from
1937.31 Rigg’s main interest was in determining musical correlates for joy, lamentation,
hopeful longing, sorrowful longing, and love, but, “to reduce somewhat the suggestive
force of the list,” Rigg added the terms fear, anger, and disgust as “distractors.”32 Short
passages of piano music were presented to participants, who were asked first to freely
describe the emotion suggested by the passage, and subsequently to choose a descriptor
from the list of eight terms. When describing passages freely, no participants used the
term “fear”; when given a forced choice, only small percentages used this term, even for
passages selected by the experimenter to suggest this emotion specifically.
[3.3] While Rigg had not expected to find a strong relationship between music and fear,
Peter Hampton in 1945 actively set out to investigate music’s relationship to fear and
seven other “dysphoric” emotions: terror, horror, suspense, suspicion, rage, irritation, and
agony.33 As with Rigg’s study, findings in favor of musical dysphoria were meager,
limited to “agony” as a description of a passage from Beethoven’s Third Symphony
(second movement) and “suspense” as a description of a passage from Shostakovich’s
Fourth Symphony (fourth movement). In response to a passage from Strauss’s Till
Eulenspiegel—a passage specifically intended to represent/induce fear—only 4.3% of
participants reported experiencing fear, while 67.3% of them reported experiencing
pleasure.

29 Jackson (1983). While there are certainly scary aspects to the sonic materials of
“Thriller” (creaking doors, howls, sadistic laughter, organ timbre), it is possible to
conceive of a contrast between the emotional resonances of lyrics and those of the music.
The bass line, drum beat, harmonies, and melodic lines, arguably, are no more “scary” in
an obvious way than are those of any other song on the album Thriller (such as “Billie
Jean” or “Beat It,” which are similar in each of these respects). The topic is too complex
to explore in detail here, but for a classic raising of the issue, consider Boyé’s (1779)
criticism of Gluck’s “Che farò senza Euridice,” for being “so cheerful, that a contredance
has been made of it” (“Le style du Chant a été trouvé si gai, qu’on en a fait une fort jolie
Contredanse”; 13–14), together with responses to this criticism by Hanslick (1986, 16)
and Kivy (1989, 79–80). For recent empirical work addressing music-lyric relationships
(although not with respect to fear specifically), see Ali and Peynircioglu (2006), Baltes et
al. (2011), and Mori and Iwanaga (2014).
30E.g., Gilman (1892), Gundlach (1935), Hevner (1936). For a review see Gabrielsson
and Lindström (2010).
31 Rigg (1937).
32 Ibid. (443).
33 Hampton (1945).

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[3.4] Two recent studies, both using large numbers of participants and emotion terms,
further support the claim that fear is experienced in response to music only weakly or
unusually. Using 141 participants and 44 terms, Juslin and Laukka found that fear ranked
39th out of 44 emotions commonly experienced in response to music.34 Similarly, Zentner
and colleagues, asking 801 participants which emotions they experienced “frequently” or
“a lot” when listening to music, found fear to be reported by fewer than 2.4% of them. 35
In sum, the empirical-psychological literature suggests that fear responses to music are
rare.
[3.5] However, the relevant question is not whether music frequently elicits fear, but
whether it ever does. Indeed, the evidence suggests that it does. First there is the
ubiquitous use of music in film and television. If music merely represented fear in such
contexts, it would likely be far more dispensable. A kind of natural experiment can be
observed in the case of acquired musical anhedonia, in which patients (usually as a result
of brain damage) become emotionally unresponsive to music. Such patients often
maintain the ability to recognize emotional portrayals in music, while losing the
enjoyment that once accompanied them. 36 This suggests that recognition and feeling are
dissociable—the former does not necessarily induce the latter. One goes to a scary movie,
one can extrapolate, not merely to recognize fear, but to feel it—and music is likely
integral to this process.
[3.6] Laboratory studies support the notion that music can arouse and modulate the
physiological and neurological correlates of fear. In a classic study by Thayer and
Levenson, participants viewed an industrial safety film accompanied by either no
soundtrack, a “documentary” soundtrack, (“a mildly active chord progression based on
major seventh chords”) or a “horror” soundtrack (“a repetitive figure based on diminished
seventh chords and harsh timbres”). 37 Compared with participants in the no-soundtrack
and documentary conditions, participants viewing the film accompanied by the horror
soundtrack exhibited elevated skin conductance responses. Because music was the sole
variable altered across conditions, and because activation of the sympathetic nervous
system is a recognized indicator of fear and anxiety responses, this finding suggests that
music can, in at least some cases, interface with real fear and anxiety. 38
[3.7] Neuroscientific evidence similarly supports the claim that music can at least in some
cases be scary. Baumgartner and colleagues, for instance, presented participants with
emotional pictures paired with emotional music of similar valence (happy, sad, or scary),

34 Juslin and Laukka (2004).

35 Zentner, Grandjean, and Scherer (2008).
36 Griffiths (2004), Satoh et al. (2011), Dellacherie, Ehrlé, and Samson (2008).
37 Thayer and Levenson (1983, 46–47).
38For studies reporting similar findings, see Baumgartner, Esslen, and Jäncke (2006),
Khalfa et al. (2002), Krumhansl (1997), and Vieillard, Roy, and Peretz (2011). For
musicologist Michael Spitzer’s reflections on his own skin conductance responses to
passages from Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony (which he believes to be expressive of
fear), see Spitzer (2011).

9
finding that music enhanced the emotional potency (though not the specificity) of the
images, as indicated by self-report, alpha-band EEG, and amygdala activity.39 Similar
findings have been arrived at by Eldar et al. and Lerner et al., with scary music enhancing
emotional responsiveness (to a movie or simply with the eyes closed), and the amygdala
a major player in this. 40
[3.8] From such findings we can conclude that fear responses to music, if rare, are
nevertheless not unheard of. In film and television, music plays the functional role of
arousing and modulating emotion, and in scary films it seems hardly debatable that music
does this integrally, not incidentally. Patients who can recognize musical emotions but
not feel them exhibit reduced music-seeking behaviors, suggesting that recognition is not
sufficient for enjoyment. And at the level of both the sympathetic nervous system and
brain structures like the amygdala, music-aroused fear non-trivially resembles fear
aroused by other means. We may conclude from such observations that fear is one of the
emotions music can arouse. “Scary music” exists. We turn now to an examination of its
structure.

STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SCARY MUSIC

[4.1] Having determined that music can be scary, we now ask what makes it so. To begin
with the null hypothesis, suppose that nothing at all makes it scary, only experience (i.e.,
learned associations). On this “cliché” or “enculturation” model, the structural
characteristics of scary music and the feelings they evoke are arbitrarily related to one
another, paired only through the listener’s experience. Descartes once wrote in a letter to
Mersenne, “if a dog were whipped five or six times to the sound of a violin, as soon as it
heard this music again it would begin to cry and run away.” 41 Kivy’s illustration is
equally colorful:

The power of some particular musical composition to cause sadness in me,

unlike, say, the power of acid to burn my flesh, is not a power that it has
over all “normal” people. It is a power the music has acquired by having
played a special role in my private affairs. 42

39Baumgartner, Esslen, and Jäncke (2006), Baumgartner et al. (2006). Alpha power,
particularly over frontal regions, correlates with reduced cognitive activity and the inner-
direction of and diffuseness of attentional focus, such as in reflective states and day
dreaming.
40 Eldar et al. (2007), Lerner et al. (2009).
41 Letter XX, March 18, 1630. The translation is from Van Orden (2002).
42 Kivy (1989, 30).

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[4.2] Association is certain to play some role in musical emotion. It is hard not to identify
with the feelings described here in Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past:

And before Swann had had time to understand what was happening, to
think: ‘It is the little phrase from Vinteuil’s sonata. I mustn’t listen!’ all his
memories of the days when Odette had been in love with him, which he
had succeeded, up till that evening, in keeping invisible in the depths of
his being, deceived by this sudden reflection of a season of love, whose
sun, they supposed, had dawned again, had awakened from their slumber,
had taken wing and risen to sing maddeningly in his ears, without pity for
his present desolation, the forgotten strains of happiness.43

But to claim that association accounts for the entirety of musical emotion is, as I see it, a
radical stance, requiring proof of its own. Far more likely is that innate biases in the
human auditory system—biases connecting sound processing to affect processing—play
at least some role in giving rise to musical feelings and meanings. For this reason, it
makes sense to investigate the sonic properties of music used to frighten, and to seek to
understand both what they do when they are received by a human listener’s auditory-
affective apparatus, and why.
[4.3] As a first step toward identifying the structural characteristics of scary music,
experimental stimuli used to arouse this emotion may be studied. Until recently it was
rare for such stimuli to be made available by researchers. Many authors stated simply that
“scary music” (or something like it) had been used, without offering further details.
Authors such as Rigg and Hampton (discussed earlier) named specific pieces but not
which portions have been used; Krumhansl, even more helpfully, offers precise start and
end points for specific recordings—extremely unusual in the scientific literature. 44 Even
more unusual, and of obvious value to the present investigation, Gosselin and colleagues,
in the 2005 article addressed in this paper’s introduction, provide complete scores for all
stimuli used.45 A few of these are reproduced in Example 1.
[4.4] The stimuli used by Gosselin and colleagues, which consisted of 56 passages of
under 20 seconds each, were composed for the laboratory by Bernard Bouchard “with the

43Proust (2006, 331), translation by C. K. Scott Moncrieff (1922). Quoted in

Baumgartner (1992). This is sometimes called the “Darling, they’re playing our tune”
phenomenon. For empirical studies see Baumgartner (1992), Janata (2009).
44 Krumhansl (1997).
45Gosselin et al. (2005). Scores for the additional, non-scary stimuli are presented in
Vieillard et al. (2008), and audio recordings for all stimuli are available on the BRAMS
laboratory website: http://www.peretzlab.ca/publications/2005/impaired-recognition-of-
scary-music-following-unilateral-temporal-lobe-excision/.

11
intention of inducing or expressing fear, peacefulness, happiness or sadness.”46 In the
methods section of the article, the authors elaborate as follows:

The happy excerpts were written in a major mode at an average tempo... of

137 (range 92–196), the melodic line lying in the medium-high pitch
range, and the pedal was not used. In contrast, the sad excerpts were
written in a minor mode at an average slow tempo (metronome marking
46, range 40–60), with the pedal. The peaceful music was composed in a
major mode, had an intermediate tempo (mean metronome marking 74,
range 54–100), and was played with pedal and arpeggio accompaniment.
The scary music was relatively fast (tempo varied from 96 [correct value:
44] to 172) and composed with minor chords on the third and sixth
degrees, hence implying the use of accidentals. Although most scary
excerpts were regular and consonant, a few had irregular rhythms and
contain[ed] dissonant events.47

With respect to the happy, sad, and peaceful descriptions, there are few surprises here:
since the early days of empirical music psychology, upbeat major-key music has been
found to be “happy,” slow minor-key music “sad,” and (less frequently) slow major-key
music “peaceful” (or something like it). 48 These descriptions—and the aesthetic choices
they denote—are thus uncontroversial. They furthermore suggest internal consistency—
the happy stimuli composed by Bouchard are all highly similar to one another, as are the
sad and peaceful stimuli.
[4.5] In contrast, the scary stimuli are highly heterogeneous as a group, as reflected in the
authors’ description, and in my own slightly elaborated comparison in Example 2.
Regarding tempo, there is an error in the authors’ description: the true lower bound for
tempo was 44, not 96, making the actual temporal spectrum anywhere from largo to
presto. Similarly, as noted by the authors, the scary stimuli could be either consonant or
dissonant, and rhythmically either regular or irregular. Most music fits this description.
The sole remaining descriptor—the use “minor chords on the third and sixth degrees”—is
more specific, but applies accurately to only half of the stimuli used to evoke
scariness/fear. If scary music can be either fast or slow, either consonant or dissonant,
either regular or irregular, and either with minor chromatic mediants or not—what makes
such music scary?
[4.6] Interested in this question themselves, the authors tasked a musical “expert” with
evaluating each scary stimulus on five-point scales for dissonance, unexpectedness, and
irregularity (Example 2, far right column). Music theorists will be unsurprised to find that

46 Gosselin et al. (2005, 630).

47 Ibid. (630–31). Emphasis mine.
48
E.g., Hevner (1937), Campbell (1942), Rigg (1964), Balkwill and Thompson (1999),
Gagnon and Peretz (2003). For a review see Gabrielsson and Lindström (2010).

12
this method of “analysis” was not as effective as hoped: “unfortunately,” the authors
write, “no specific contribution of these different structural features could be discerned in
the subjects’ evaluation of the stimuli.” 49 My own ratings for irregularity are provided in
column 4 of Example 2 (with descriptions of specific techniques used), together with my
descriptions of vertical and horizontal dissonance types (columns 5 and 6). The
description I offer is arguably somewhat “thicker,” but the enigma is not much closer to
being resolved. If these fourteen scary stimuli are so different from one another in the
structural sense, what makes them all recognizably scary?
[4.7] Given that all fourteen of the “scary” stimuli employed by Gosselin and colleagues
were composed by a single individual, if the findings of that study are to be assumed to
generalize—i.e., if amygdala damage is taken to interfere with fear detection in this sort
of music generally—then it is important to compare the structural features of this
stimulus set with other music intended to frighten. For this purpose, Erdmann and
Becce’s Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik serves as an excellent resource, offering
over 3,000 incipits to musical works used in the silent film era, categorized according to
dramatic function. 50 Out of fifty such categories in the entire work, sixteen bear some
overlap with notions of “fear” and “scariness,” for a total of 377 incipits. Example 3(a)
offers an overview of the structural characteristics of each group of incipits, including
average tempo, typical dynamic markings, aspects of melodic contour and range,
characteristics of mode and collection, and miscellaneous additional observations.51
Example 3(c) presents a representative incipit for each group.
[4.8] A full-length study of its own could be devoted to this material: I offer here only a
few observations. First, as can be observed in the category names alone, nuance and
differentiation are the norm rather than the exception—each bears a relationship to
“fear,” but one would be hard-pressed to say that all are expressive of the same emotion
(a point to be returned to below). Second, slow and fast tempo averages are more
common than midranges, with no averages between 85 and 114. This bimodal
distribution suggests that there could be at least two different types of fear, a fast kind and
a slow kind (also to be elaborated below). Third, dynamic extremes are common as well,
with most categories hovering toward either the loud or the soft end of the continuum. 52
Example 3(d) plots this tempo-by-dynamic relationship for each category, illustrating the
inherent variety at an extremely coarse grain of analysis.53

49
Gosselin et al. (2005, 633).
50 Erdmann and Becce (1927).
51Slots with multiple entries list the most common first. In the rightmost column, many
techniques are observed only in individual incipits and are thus not necessarily general to
the category.
52The few in between, such as “Pursuit, Flight, Haste,” are actually heterogeneous, with
some loud and some soft excerpts, rather than mostly mid-volume excerpts.
53The measure used to derive the average dynamic marking for each category, or degree
of loudness, took the number of excerpts in the category that were primarily loud or

13
[4.9] Fourth, the most consistent feature across all 377 incipits is the use of the minor
mode: vanishingly few fear-type incipits are in major (most exceptions being in the
“Battle” category), and in cases in which diminished and augmented sonorities are found,
the larger context is frequently that of harmonic minor. Other forms of minor found
include Dorian, Phrygian, and Phrygian-dominant.54 Finally, as in the Bouchard stimuli,
chromatic mediant relations are indeed found in these incipits, although they are not
limited to the minor variety. The related composing-out of hexatonic, octatonic, and
whole-tone collections is also somewhat common, as are atonal passages, chromatic runs,
and other means of emphasizing dissonance over consonance.
[4.10] In sum, the stimuli composed by Bouchard for use in the Gosselin study seem well
within the range of “normal” for scary music, at least as evidenced by the Erdmann and
Becce incipits. However, as can be seen in the coarse-grained analyses of these incipits
presented in Examples 3(a) through 3(c), there is quite a bit of heterogeneity to deal with.
We do not yet have a strong sense of what scary music is in the structural sense—whether
it is fast or slow, consonant or dissonant, regular or irregular, loud or soft, high or low,
ascending or descending, minor or something else entirely. If we have learned anything,
it seems to be that scary music is difficult to put one’s finger on. Structurally speaking,
scary music almost seems consistently inconsistent.

CONSISTENT INCONSISTENCY

[5.1] Remarkably, it is almost a consistent finding in the empirical literature that the
acoustical correlates of fear-type utterances—both vocal and musical—are inconsistent.
Klaus Scherer states as much in his review of 28 studies of the vocal expression of
emotion: “Whereas [subjects] seem to be rather accurate in decoding emotional meaning
from vocal cues, researchers in psychoacoustics and psychophonetics have so far been
unable to identify a set of vocal indicators that reliably differentiate a number of discrete
emotions [including fear].”55 Similarly, in a review of 145 studies of emotional
expression in both the voice and music, Juslin and Laukka note a “paradoxical”
“inconsistency of code usage” observed across studies—and not across domains (speech
versus music), but within domains.56 Among the music studies alone (Example 4), nine
found music expressive of “fear”57 to be fast in tempo, while five found the opposite;

characterized by crescendo and divided this number by the number of excerpts total
(omitting those with no dynamic marking).
54 Phrygian-dominant = Phrygian with a major third.
55 Scherer (1986, 143–44).
56 Juslin and Laukka (2003, 799–801).
57Terms used across studies include: afraid, angst, ängstlich, anxiety, anxious, fearful,
fear of death, fear-pain, fear-terror-horror, frightened, nervousness, panic, paura, peur,
protection, scared, Schreck, terror, and worry (Juslin and Laukka 2003, 776).

14
eleven studies found the music of fear to be low in intensity while one reported it to be
medium; regarding timbre, six reported correlations with a low degree of high-frequency
content while two reported the opposite; two studies reported that pitch variation tended
to be low for musical fear while one reported it to be high; two reported attack
characteristics to be legato, one reported them to be staccato; and three reported greater
irregularity of microstructure while one reported reduced irregularity. Once again, then,
we have something like consistent inconsistency—or alternatively, we may be
misinterpreting the data.
[5.2] There is an argument for consistent inconsistency, but only a partial one. Stimuli
that are consistent in their physical structure are more easily tuned out by perceivers, and
for this reason calls of desperation, such as alarm calls, tend to be not only loud and
rough but also nonlinear, hence difficult to ignore not merely psychologically but
physiologically.58
[5.3] Another means of explaining the inconsistency observed—which Juslin and Laukka
themselves propose—is to invoke the notion of probability. Individual cues “are not
perfectly reliable indicators of the expressed emotion,” they reason, but rather “contribute
in an additive fashion to decoders’ judgments.”59 Thus, according to their reasoning,
while scary music may tend to be rapid, slow music might nevertheless be experienced as
scary if, for instance, its timbre is on the dark side, its contours low in variability but
rising, its articulation legato, and so on. This explanation, too, is partially successful. Of
benefit, it emphasizes the inherent richness of the human vocal and musical apparatus:
any given “emotion” can be communicated in any number of ways; no two utterances are
likely ever the same. For this reason, for emotions to be recognized in music (or the
voice), some form of probabilistic forgiveness must be at work. Without it there would be
no categories at all.
[5.4] But how important are emotional categories? When one plays music, does one seek
to have the dominant emotion in the music recognized by a listener? Some philosophers
seem to think so (Kivy for example), but my gut tells me this is far from the mark. As
argued by Nattiez (1990), while communication theory works well for speech it is poorly
suited to music. More recently, Michael Owren and colleagues 60 have argued similarly
with respect to animal communication: communicative behaviors often can be interpreted
as conveying “information”—i.e., can be interpreted semantically—but in many if not
most cases communicative behaviors are far more manipulative in in their actual effect—
inducing automatic changes in the perceiver, irrespective of any kind of understanding.
[5.5] For such reasons I do not believe the categorical perception of emotion, in music or
speech, to be of great import: I view it as an epiphenomenon rather than an integral
cognitive capacity. But the problem of consistent inconsistency warrants attention: as I
see it, it is symptomatic of a larger problem, that of misinterpretation, or improper
conceptualization of emotions generally. For the case of fear, this improper

58 Blumstein and Récapet (2009), Owren, Rendall, and Bachorowski (2005).

59 Juslin and Laukka (2003, 801).
60 Owren, Rendall, and Bachorowski (2005).

15
conceptualization derives from the assumption that fear is “a thing”—a single thing, a
single category of feeling, which ought to have a single most typical acoustic profile.
[5.6] Admittedly, at one level, fear is a thing: the level of motivation. If, with Arne
Öhman, we define fear as “an activated, aversive emotional state that serves to motivate
the organism to cope with threatening events,”61 then we can see all different varieties of
fear as having some inherent resonance, some similarity—phenomena as diverse, say, as
Erdmann and Becce’s “catastrophes,” “nocturnal horrors,” “struggles,” “battles,” and
cries of “despair” and “passion.” But as we have seen, the acoustical and structural
parameters of utterances of this sort (whether vocal or musical) are paradoxically
inconsistent, and to group them into a single category acoustico-structurally seems an
obvious violation of logic. If all tempi are averaged together, for instance, we arrive at a
moderato pacing that is not characteristic of any of the stimulus-types examined.
Similarly with contour, intensity, timbre, articulation: is it not possible that there are
different types of fear?
[5.7] Indeed it is. To begin with the obvious, “fear generally”—the motivational state
described by Öhman above—manifests in at least three different behavioral variants:
fleeing, fighting, and freezing. 62 These variants are observed across species, including
humans. They differ, no doubt, in particulars. 63 Importantly, they differ across individuals
as well, and within individuals over the course of time. This change in response strategy
over time is described here by Blanchard and Blanchard (in wild rats):

Flight is the predominant response when escape is possible and the

predator approaches within flight distance. When flight is not possible,
freezing is the initial defense, followed by defensive threat (vocalization
with display of teeth) when about 1 m separates the two, and by an
explosive jump attack should the predator continue to approach. The jump
attack may involve a bite at the predator’s eye-snout area, followed
immediately by flight. 64

Thus if “fear” is a unitary phenomenon at the motivational level, at the behavioral level,
it is at least tri-partite. An additional layer of complexity is revealed when social factors
are considered. In predator-prey interactions, physical escape may be the only effective
form of response; but in interactions between members of the same species,

61 Öhman (2005, 953).

62Blanchard and Blanchard (1988), Fanselow (1994). As noted below (fn 76), all three
responses are elicitable via stimulation to the periaqueductal gray area (Bandler and
Shipley 1994), as is a fourth defensive response, defeat. See my comments there about
the manifestation of this latter in the opening attack sequence of Jaws.
63As Panksepp notes, “Humans are often scared of dark places, while rats prefer them.
Rats fear the smell of cats; humans do not” (2004, 490).
64 Blanchard and Blanchard (1988, 46).

16
communication plays an enormous role. Physical gestures convey approach and
avoidance intentions, focus of the attention, readiness to strike, and emotional state.
Vocalizations do each of these things and more. Importantly, as noted by Panksepp, in
aggressive encounters between conspecifics, even “anger” and “fear” may not be
completely dissociable, as an animal may oscillate back and forth between the two
instantaneously, without evidencing any overt categorical change.65
[5.8] Within the realm of non-human primate vocalization, utterances that bear some
relationship to “fear”—not unlike what was seen with the Erdmann and Becce musical
incipits—are highly diverse and specific to context. In squirrel monkeys (one of the most
thoroughly documented repertoires),66 some vocalizations are uttered only in response to
predators (such as alarm peeps), while others occur between conspecifics (squeals); some
are uttered only by dominant animals (spits, growls), others by subordinate animals
(peeps); some are issued only in groups (yaps, shriek-cackles), others tête-à-tête (spits);
and regarding time course, some vocalizations are issued prior to fleeing (alarm peeps),
others while fleeing (shrieks), still others only after safety has been reached (yaps).67
[5.9] With a vocalization repertoire this diverse—functionally as well as sonically—
would it not seem rather silly to inquire what the acoustical correlates of “fear” are in
squirrel monkeys (or chimpanzees or bonobos, or any other primate)? And by extension,
does it not seem even sillier to ask this question with respect to human vocal
communication, let alone human music-making?

TYPES OF FEAR: VERDI’S REQUIEM

[6.1] That this question is musically relevant will be demonstrated through two examples.
By way of the first, consider the passages excerpted in Example 5 from Verdi’s Messa da
Requiem, together with the following description by musicologist Luca Zoppelli.
Regarding the “Dies irae” (Examples 5[a]–5[c]) and “Tuba mirum” (Example 5[d]),
Zoppelli writes:

The apocalypse and the trumpets of Judgment Day are evoked by, on the
one hand, an incredible phonic violence and, on the other hand, a radical
destabilization of music linguistic structural landmarks. . . . [N]o tonal
center is clearly detectable. . . . Rough thematic elements follow one
another in a seemingly chaotic order. . . . [T]he rapid sequence of musical
gestures leads to an almost unbearable summit of intensity, abruptly cut

65Panksepp (1998). Notably, Panksepp does identify distinct fear and anger systems in
the brain, but they share neighboring pathways through the amygdala.
66 Fichtel, Hammerschmidt, and Jürgens (2001), Jürgens (1979).
67Jürgens (1979). For a similar codification (and comparison) of bonobo and chimpanzee
vocalizations, see de Waal (1988), Slocombe and Zuberbühler (2005).

17
 short: the last sounds of the “Tuba mirum”. . . [stop] abruptly, as if cut off
by an axe. . . . [We] explain the brutality of such an interruption . . . as the
violence of a superior force which “turns out the light,” leaving us in fear
and uncertainty.68

In this description, we recognize a number of musico-structural characteristics we have

previously identified as relating to fear: rapidity, intensity, chaos, abruptness. And indeed
Zoppelli attests that we are left “in fear and uncertainty.”
[6.2] But now consider the “Mors stupebit” (Example 5[e]), in which “the deceased,”

awoken by these terrifying trumpets, . . . emerge from their tombs to be

judged. . . . First the sudden and prolonged silence . . . creating an attitude
of spasmodic waiting. Next a musical gesture in the strings, pppp. The low
dynamic level forces us to heighten our perceptive activity, linked to our
typical reaction in situations of possible danger. . . . Tonal and metrical
incertitude, due to failing grammatical structure, generates a response of
alienation and fear. 69

Here too, we recognize characteristics typical of fear-type sounds and behaviors:

suddenness, anticipation, unpredictability, extreme quietness, sense of danger, and a
response of “alienation and fear.” Both sets of passages, we can acknowledge (as
Zoppelli argues) are expressive of some sort of fear or scariness. And yet are they not
entirely different? The first is loud, the latter soft; the first densely elaborate and frenetic,
the latter sparse and withheld; the first timbrally rich and thickly scored, the latter muted
and hushed. These sets passages do not differ only in a few details—they are virtual
opposites. Are they both really expressive of the same thing?
[6.3] A first, obvious solution to this problem is to introduce the different types of fear
mentioned above: fleeing-fear, fighting-fear, and freezing-fear. Hardly controversial, 70
such a move buys quite a bit of traction. Fear of the fight and flight variety would, to a
first approximation, be faster, louder, denser, and higher in energy generally; 71 in
contrast, freezing fear would be the opposite—as quiet as possible, with minimal external
movement (despite significant internal unrest). 72

68 Ibid. (150).
69 Ibid. (150–51).
70Despite being uncontroversial, it remains unusual; but see Spitzer (2011), McClelland
(2014), and Huron (2006).
71See for example the categories “Highly Dramatic Agitation,” “Pursuit, Flight, Haste,”
“Struggle,” and “Excited Crowd: Tumult” in Example 3.
72 See the categories “Night: Horror,” “Creepy,” and “Heavy Cry” in Example 3.

18
[6.4] The discerning reader may note resemblances to the tempesta and ombra topics,
tempesta aligning in its structural features with the “Dies irae” and “Tuba mirum”
(Example 5[a]–5[d]), ombra with the “Mors stupebit” (Example 5[e]). As noted by Clive
McClelland, there is significant overlap in the structural characteristics of these two
topics.73 Both tend to be in minor and to feature frequent modulations, restless rhythms,
bold chromaticisms, scalar passages, tremolo effects, and disjunct “exclamatory”
melodies. But of course they differ as well, tempesta passages tending to be agitated,
rapid, and loud; ombra passages tending toward the quiet, slow, and sustained. Just as it
is unproductive to ask which sort of passage is more expressive of “fear generally,” so
too is it unproductive to ask which topic is more expressive of fear. On my reading, they
both have something to do with fear, but something different. To a first approximation,
tempesta passages align with the high-(external)-arousal varieties of fear response:
fighting- and fleeing-fear, while ombra passages align with freezing-fear. But there may
be a better solution.

FEAR VS. SCARINESS: JOHN WILLIAMS’ SCORE FOR JAWS

[7.1] To this point, the terms “fear” and “scariness” have been treated interchangeably,
but in many cases they warrant being kept distinct. To state the obvious, the first
corresponds to the state of the perceiver, the second to the thing perceived. Returning
briefly to Zoppelli’s descriptions of the “Dies irae” and “Mors stupebit,” as a first
approximation we made sense of their highly differing musico-structural profiles along
an axis of “energy,” distinguishing high-energy types of fear (fighting and fleeing) from
low-(external)-energy types (freezing). On this second approximation we may now note
in Zoppelli’s first description (i.e., of the “Dies irae”) a predominant concern, not with
the frightened subject, but with frightening objects: “the apocalypse,” “Judgment Day,”
“phonic violence,” “chaotic order,” “brutality,” and being “cut off by an axe.” In contrast,
his second description (i.e., of the “Mors stupebit”) does primarily concern itself with the
feelings of a frightened subject—but not exclusively, as reference is also made to “agents
whose footsteps make the ground tremble.” High-energy and low-energy music, we may
conclude, can be expressive of either fear or scariness: the dimensions are orthogonal.
Fear has at least two dimensions.
[7.2] We can see these two dimensions at play—and add a third, that of time—by
examining the opening attack sequence from the film Jaws (directed by Steven Spielberg,
with music by John Williams; 0:03:36–0:04:48 on the DVD; Example 6). 74 The music for
this cue, just over a minute in duration, is at times low in “energy” (volume, pitch height,
rhythmic activity, spectral centroid) while at other times high; it seems at some times to
map onto the swimmer’s “fear,” at others onto the shark’s “scariness,” at still other times
both; and importantly these mappings develop over time, in no way representing a single
static emotion but rather helping to bring about a complex, rapidly evolving trajectory.

73 McClelland (2014).
74 Zanuck and Brown (2005, Universal DVD 332074), Williams (2000).

19
Every emotion, you might say—certainly every cognitive faculty—is called upon by the
swimmer as she struggles to survive—and perhaps in the shark as it pursues its own
survival needs.
[7.3] As seen in Example 6, I divide the sequence into six dramatic “phases,” articulated
by changes in musical structure in close tandem with camerawork and action. Phase 1
(3:36–3:54) effectively sets the scene. Prior to this the swimmer has been seen without
musical accompaniment, but as the low C# in the double-basses enters here, the camera is
now directed at the swimmer from under the water for the first time: the suggestion is that
of a large, lying-in-wait underwater presence. Twitchings in the cellos seem to map onto
this underwater being’s potential for sudden and forceful movement, while the higher-
register content of the cue (the rising triplets in harp and vibraphone, and the slower,
rising minor-sixth dyads in the violins) instead seems to “bubble up” to the top of the
frame, mapping onto the swimmer’s dangling legs and the water’s glistening surface. In
this first phase, the swimmer experiences no apparent fear, but the audience does—
primarily due to Williams’ successful evocation of the “scariness” of the shark and its
apparent interest in the girl.
[7.4] In Phase 2 (3:54–4:04), the camera begins its approach from this same underwater
angle, as the basses cease their low drone and join the cellos in articulating the film’s
famous E-F semitone motive (heard once previously, during the credits, and paired with
underwater point-of-view shots of a similar nature). The tempo increases slightly (from
80 to 85 bpm), and a semi-dissonant stinger occurs midway through, sustaining for
several seconds. Again the swimmer remains unaware, but the audience’s fear (on my
interpretation) increases dramatically due to the pairing of camera approach and musical
intensification.75
[7.5] In Phase 3 (4:05–4:10), the swimmer—shown in medium close-up from above the
water—becomes suddenly aware of the shark’s presence and exhibits an immediate and
drastic reduction in movement and respiration, which we might call “freezing fear.”
Musically the passage consists of a single, sustained, more dissonant stinger in medium-
range strings, initiated by a noisy hit in low brass and percussion (rhythmically
unpredictable due to the intensification and breakdown of meter in the previous segment).
At the shot’s onset, the swimmer dips slightly downward in the frame, suggesting an
initial, small bite, after which she ceases most movement; after a second apparent bite,
she begins to hyperventilate; following a third, during which she is pulled below the
surface for a longer time, she emerges screaming.
[7.6] Phase 4 begins as she does so and for this reason seems representative of “fleeing
fear.” This phase lasts for over twenty seconds (4:11–4:34) but subdivides into two parts
(due to a three-second cutaway to the swimmer’s unaware companion on the beach). In
Phase 4a (4:11–4:23), the swimmer is shown from above the water being tossed around
by the shark, screaming and desperately trying to escape. Musically, the tempo increases
dramatically to 175 bpm, and rapid dissonant triplets in all string parts are punctuated
unpredictably by brass and bass-drum hits (note the highly approximate nature of the

75For a discussion of the same phenomenon in a very different film (The King’s Speech),
see Bashwiner (2013).

20
transcription here). Phase 4b (4:26–4:34) is a continuation musically and visually, but the
E-F motive is now prominent in the lower strings, repeating more rapidly than at any
previous point in the film. The music as a result seems to be mapping not only onto the
swimmer’s desperate fleeing fear, but also onto the shark’s surging bloodlust.
[7.7] In Phase 5 (4:35–4:38), the swimmer is permitted brief respite on a buoy, to the
accompaniment of four simple half notes on the vibraphone. Hardly peaceable, these
notes seem to usher in the unfortunate swimmer’s doom, and her vocalizations begin to
convey defeat rather than panic. 76
[7.8] Finally, in Phase 6 (4:38—4:48), the rhythmic density once again picks up, and it
now becomes clear—musically more so than by any other means—that the swimmer’s
demise is imminent. This music intensifies across multiple dimensions—violin stabs
echoed unpredictably by bass-drum hits, knit together by a muted trumpet played forte
and rising slowly and chromatically, seemingly impersonally. This intensification,
contrasting as it does with the swimmer’s diminishing determination to flee (conveyed
both vocally and posturally), seems as a result to map onto the shark’s unceasing
dominance. At this final point, in other words, the balance has tipped almost entirely to
conveying the shark’s scariness rather than the swimmer’s fear—even as the audience’s
fear has intensified.
[7.9] Stepping back for a moment to consider the entirety of the cue from the music-
structural perspective, the value of conceptualizing fear complexly becomes evident.
Admittedly, in certain respects, all of the music of the cue can be called “scary.” Most of
the features identified above as typical of scary music—in the Bouchard stimuli, the
Erdmann and Becce incipits, Juslin and Laukka’s meta-review, and McClelland’s
descriptions of the tempesta and ombra topics—are found in this cue: dissonance,
chromaticism, harmonic ambiguity, harmonic and metrical unpredictability, harsh
timbres, dynamic and registral extremes, and disjunct melodic activity. But clearly this
music is not static in the feelings it conveys/arouses. Certain musical moments map onto
either the swimmer or the shark (but not both), and hence onto either fear or scariness
(but not both); certain music-structural changes and developments help to demarcate,
indeed effectuate, different phases in the swimmer’s fear response—combined, conflated,
and even contrasted with the shark’s distinct phases of attack. All such music can be
considered “scary.” But should it? Need there be a single emotion that such music
“represents” (or communicates, or arouses, etc.)? Given the vast complexity of fear as a
thing—its diverse behavioral classes (freezing, fleeing, fighting, surrendering), its

76
Bandler and Shipley (1994), in an article on neural correlates of the three behavioral
responses to fear we have identified—fighting, fleeing, and freezing—make note of a
fourth response type also observed, which occurs after attempts to freeze, flee, and fight
have failed—and which they thus liken to “defeat.” This fear response can be achieved
by way of stimulating the same brain structure (the periaqueductal gray area, although a
different sub-portion of it), but it makes use of a different neurotransmitter system, the
opioid system—involved in alleviating pain and quelling stress-related activity. Such a
response is what I imaging to be taking place in the swimmer from this four-note respite
through the end of the cue.

21
vocalization types (growls, groans, shrieks, squeals, yaps, peeps), its phases of
development (pre-encounter, mid-encounter, post-encounter), its responsiveness to social
nuance (inter- vs. intra-species response strategies, dominance roles, group dynamics),
and its manifestation as either the frightened subject or the frightening object (embodied
in the scariness/fear distinction)—it seems inescapable that there cannot be a single
prototypical means of expressing, representing, or evoking fear and scariness in music.
Scary music, I believe, is not a “thing,” not a “natural kind,” has no corresponding set of
musico-structural features to identify. It is not that these features have yet to be identified,
but that they cannot be. There is no such thing as scary music.

THE AMYGDALA: A ONE-TRICK PONY OR A HORSE OF MANY COLORS?

[8.1] What, then, is the point of this article if its very subject has gone the way of
Aristotle’s “superlunary objects”?77 If fright-conveying or fright-eliciting music is not a
“thing,” not a “natural kind,” what benefit is to be gained from its further discussion?
This is precisely my thesis—one of two, the negative one. It is not beneficial, I have
argued, to pursue an understanding of musical “fear” or “scariness”—at least by way of
the methodological approaches that have tended to predominate. Fear is not a “thing” in
this sense, and therefore a search for “its” musical correlates is destined to fail.
[8.2] But there is a “thing,” I propose, that can be beneficially studied in relationship to
music, a thing that is related to fear but not equivalent to it. This “thing” allows us to gain
traction on fear (without telling the whole of its story). And while I offer it as a substitute
for fear, I do not propose that it does the same thing, nor that it does it just as well. But I
do propose that, unlike Aristotle’s category of superlunary objects, this “thing,” if not a
true natural kind, is at least a more natural kind than the folk-psychological concept of
fear, and I thus propose that it can offer valuable perspective in the discussion—
dissection if you will—of musical emotion. This thing, as you may have guessed, is the
amygdala (Example 7).78
[8.3] The amygdala has a brief and shrouded history. A diminutive structure nestled
medially within the anterior temporal lobe, 79 the amygdala was first identified in the early

77In the book What Emotions Really Are (1997), philosopher Paul Griffiths repeatedly
invokes Aristotle’s category of superlunary objects—objects outside the orbit of the
moon—as a paradigmatic case of a non-natural kind, calling it “as arbitrary a way of
grouping objects together as it is possible to devise” (1–2). Objects can be grouped in this
way, and reliably, but not validly: the information afforded is consistent but arbitrary.
78For a compelling humanistic critique of fear as a “thing” in the sciences, see Leys
(2010). For further consideration of emotions as natural kinds, see Barrett (2006).
79By way of brief brain geography primer, the terms anterior and posterior mean front
and back, dorsal and ventral mean top and bottom (literally back and belly), lateral and
medial mean toward-the-side and toward-the-middle, and rostral and caudal mean
toward-the-nose and toward-the-tail. The two hemispheres of the brain are simply

22
nineteenth century by German physiologist Karl Burdach, who named it picturesquely for
its almond-like appearance (amygdala being Latin for “almond”). 80 But Burdach knew
nothing of the amygdala’s function, the first hints of which began to surface only at the
end of the nineteenth century, as researchers working with animals began to lesion
(damage or remove) select regions of the brain, including (but not yet limited to) the
amygdala.
[8.4] In one such early study, Sanger Brown and E. A. Schäfer 81 removed from the brain
of a male rhesus monkey the entirety of the temporal lobe bilaterally, including both
amygdalae. This monkey (the authors reported), while previously “very wild and even
fierce,” began after surgery to exhibit a “remarkable change . . . in . . . disposition,”
“voluntarily approach[ing] all persons indifferently, [and] allow[ing] himself to be
handled, or even teased or slapped, without making any attempt at retaliation or
endeavoring to escape.”82 At first blush, one might imagine that the monkey’s basic
sensory-perceptual capacities had been compromised, but the authors assure that this was
not the case: “It is clear that he still both sees and hears . . . [and] reacts to all kinds of
noises, even slight ones, such as the rustling of a piece of paper.” 83 But something had
changed: sounds formerly disturbing now elicited “no consequent evidence of alarm or
agitation,”84 and everything the monkey now came into contact with “he endeavor[ed] to
feel, taste, and smell, and to carefully examine from every point of view.” 85 The
impairment thus appeared to be not a “lower” sensory-perceptual one, but something
“higher,” more along the lines—the authors supposed—of understanding.
[8.5] In the 1930s, this phenomenon was investigated in greater detail by Heinrich Klüver
and Paul C. Bucy, who added to the list of symptoms a pronounced tameness—largely a
loss of fear and anger, but extending to reduced vocalizations and facial expressions, and
fleeting demonstrations of rage which would “immediately subside.” 86 Ultimately,
lesions of smaller size were examined, and by mid-century Weiskrantz87 had reproduced
many of the symptoms of Klüver-Bucy syndrome in animals in which only the amygdala
and temporal pole had been removed—specifically the symptoms related to anger and

referred to as left and right, and each hemisphere has four lobes (temporal, parietal,
occipital, and frontal). The amygdalae (one in each hemisphere) are roughly a few inches
inward from the temple on each side of the head—just anterior and medial to the auditory
cortices.
80 Burdach (1819–1822).
81 Brown and Schäfer (1888).
82 Ibid. (310).
83 Ibid. (312).
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid. (311).
86 Klüver and Bucy (1939, 992).
87 Weiskrantz (1956).

23
fear. At around the same time, Terzian and Ore 88 reported cases of Klüver-Bucy
syndrome in humans, which in the 1970s were attributed specifically to amygdala
lesions.89 By the end of the twentieth century, lesion studies had thus come to suggest
that amygdala damage leads to impaired “understanding” for negative emotions like fear,
and thus that in undamaged brains the amygdala is likely integral to such processes.
[8.6] Amygdala damage is less easily studied in humans than in animals, as amygdala
lesions that are both complete (comprising the entirety of the amygdala bilaterally) and
selective (extending to no other structure) are vanishingly rare. One such patient, referred
to as SM, has been studied, and while her impairment is less extensive than that observed
in animals, it exists, notably with respect to recognizing fear in facial expressions 90 and in
music.91 SM appears to be unimpaired in recognizing fear in vocalizations,92 but another
patient with similar damage (DM) does show such impairment. 93 PET and fMRI imaging
literature on amygdala function in (undamaged) human brains further supports these
findings, with greater amygdala activity reported when participants perceive expressions
of fear (and sometimes anger) on the face, 94 in the voice,95 and in music.96 All of this, at
first blush, therefore seems to support the traditional implication of the amygdala in
emotion recognition and experience, particularly for negative, high-intensity97 emotions
like anger and fear.
[8.7] But on closer inspection, the details of the fear-amygdala association become more
obscure, not less. While fear and anger no doubt frequently correlate with amygdala
activity in individual studies, numerous meta-analyses have challenged this finding,
supporting an equal or even greater role for the amygdala in positive emotion.98 One
explanation for such findings is that the amygdala is recruited during intense emotional
experiences, irrespective of valence. A second possibility, posed as early as Weiskrantz,99
is that the amygdala is implicated not in emotion per se, but in emotional learning—of

88 Terzian and Ore (1955).

89 Jacobson (1986).
90 Adolphs et al. (1994).
91 Gosselin et al. (2007).
92 Adolphs and Tranel (1999).
93 Scott et al. (1997).
94 Morris et al. (1996).
95 Fecteau et al. (2007), Frühholz and Grandjean (2013).
96 Aubé et al. (2014), Baumgartner et al. (2006), Eldar et al. (2007), Lerner et al. (2009).
97Fear and anger have different levels of intensity, but they are considered higher in
arousal than sadness and boredom, for instance. See Russell (1980), Sloboda and Juslin
(2010).
98 Costafreda et al. (2008), Sergerie, Chochol, and Armony (2008).
99 Weiskrantz (1956).

24
which avoidance learning (which capitalizes on negative affect) is a particularly urgent
form.100
[8.8] A third compelling interpretation is that the amygdala is highly responsive to social
stimuli generally, such as faces and voices—again irrespective of valence. Studies by
Fecteau et al.101 and Sander and Scheich102 report increased amygdala activity in response
to emotional vocalizations of any valence (laughs, cries, screams, pleasurable moans).
Similarly, studies by Kling et al. and Hariri et al. report greater amygdala activity for
naturalistic versus non-naturalistic sounds and images.103 Secousse et al. report that the
amygdala is responsive to rewards of multiple different types—money, food, and erotic
stimuli—its response being greatest for the last of these compared to the others. 104 All of
this suggests a much more complex view of amygdala function than its being a “fear
button.”105
[8.9] It is worth noting here that the amygdala is not a single nucleus but a group of
nuclei, with distinct evolutionary histories.106 The details of this heterogeneity are not
crucial for present purposes, particularly since the amygdala does function as a unit (on
most researchers’ interpretation 107). But it does have distinct subparts which do different
things, and thus apparently contribute to emotional experience in different ways. As will
be seen, the amygdala has an “input zone,” roughly its basolateral region (BLA), which is
somewhat more consistently implicated in negative emotion than its superficial region
(SF), which is more consistently linked to positive emotion.108 Even this level of analysis,
however, is coarse, as response properties may differ from cell to cell within amygdala
subregions. As reported by Janak and Tye, within the lateral portion of the central
nucleus (CE) of the amygdala, some cells are anxiogenic (turning anxiety on by way of
downstream connections) while others are anxiolytic (doing the reverse). 109 Similarly,
while the amygdala as a whole aids in the association of sensory properties of stimuli
with their motivational value, certain cells in the amygdala (in BLA) are more responsive
to the sensory properties themselves while certain other cells (in CE) are more responsive

100For supporting findings see Domínguez-Borràs et al. (2009) and Frühholz et al.
(2014).
101 Fecteau et al. (2007).
102 Sander and Scheich (2001).
103 Kling, Lloyd, and Perryman (1987), Hariri et al. (2002).
104
Secousse et al. (2012). On the complex role of the amygdala in the human sexual
experience, see Georgiadis and Kringelbach (2012).
105 Gross and Canteras (2012).
106 Di Marino, Etienne, and Niddam (2016), Swanson and Petrovich (1998).
107 Barton, Aggleton, and Grenyer (2003).
108 Bach et al. (2011), Ball et al. (2007), Koelsch et al. (2008, 2013).
109 Janak and Tye (2015, 286).

25
to their motivational value.110 With respect to emotion in particular, Kuraoka and
Nakamura recorded from individual cells in monkey amygdala and found that while over
half were responsive to social stimuli generally (faces and voices), different populations
of neurons were responsive to different classes of vocalization, with 49% of cells
responding to screams, 31% to coos, and 20% to threat grunts.111 Screams and threats are
both “negative,” but down to the cellular level it seems clear that responses to such cues
are not indiscriminate.
[8.10] The amygdala, we may conclude, is no one-trick pony, but a horse of many
emotional colors. We turn now to an examination of what those “colors” are in the arena
of musical experience.

THIS IS YOUR AMYGDALA ON MUSIC

[9.1] As might be expected—and as has been seen at various points throughout this
article—a non-negligible number of studies do implicate the amygdala in the recognition
and experience of fear-type emotions in music. Three studies by Gosselin and colleagues
have reported impairments in musical fear recognition by patients with amygdala lesions
on one or both sides of the brain, 112 while the same participants showed no impairment in
recognizing the “unpleasantness” of dissonant (but not otherwise frightening) music. A
study by Aubé and colleagues 113 presented participants with fear-type expressions in both
music and the voice and found increased amygdala activity in response to both—indeed
in the same voxels,114 suggesting precise overlap. Koelsch and colleagues, using music
from film and television soundtracks intended to arouse fear or joy, did observe changes
in amygdala activity in response to the frightening music—but notably they were in the
opposite direction of what might be expected: frightening music correlated with reduced
amygdala activity, joyful music with enhanced activity.115

110 Ibid. (287), Balleine and Killcross (2006).

111 Kuraoka and Nakamura (2007).
112 Gosselin et al. (2005, 2007, 2011).
113 Aubé et al. (2014).
114
Voxels are miniscule volumetric units of measurement, the three-dimensional
equivalent of the pixel.
115Koelsch et al. (2013, 2018), Koelsch and Skouras (2014). Notably, while activity level
does increase in both the amygdala and auditory cortex in the joy>fear comparison (in all
three studies), as does the amygdala’s influence over auditory cortex (as indicated by
eigenvector centrality; Koelsch and Skouras 2014), in the opposite comparison (fear>joy)
increased centrality is actually found in auditory cortex (primary auditory cortex, planum
temporale, and planum polare), which region shows enhanced functional connectivity
with other brain regions influential in emotion processing (such as anterior cingulate,
parahippocampal cortex, ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens, insula, orbitofrontal cortex,

26
[9.2] Some music studies thus do support the amygdala-fear association, but others do
not. Studies by Khalfa et al. and Mitterschiffthaler et al.,116 for instance, report increased
amygdala activity in response to sad (compared to happy) music. Koelsch et al., 117
contradicting previous findings,118 found increased amygdala activity in response to
dissonant music. As noted in the previous paragraph, another study by Koelsch found
amygdala activity to decrease in response to frightening music, and to increase in
response to joyful music.119 Along similar lines, Salimpoor and colleagues reported
increased connectivity between the amygdala and a region central to the brain’s “reward”
system—the nucleus accumbens—in correlation with musical enjoyment.120 Thus while
the amygdala does seem somewhat linked to musical “fear,” it is also linked to other
varieties of musico-affective experience, such as sadness, pleasure, displeasure, and joy.
[9.3] And sometimes the activity evoked in the amygdala by music (and music-type
sounds) is not obviously “emotional” at all. Basic sound properties, for instance, recruit
amygdala involvement to varying degrees. Sounds that crescendo recruit more activity
than sounds that diminuendo,121 as do sounds with rougher timbres (higher spectral
centroid and lower temporal modulation frequency).122 So too do musical passages and
soundscapes that are unpredictable. This is the case for chord progressions with
unexpected final chords,123 as well as for more complex rhythmic patterns.124 Indeed,

inferior frontal gyrus, cuneus, and precuneus; Koelsch et al. 2018). Activity levels are
thus an important indicator of brain function, the authors note, but they may not always
correlate with functional importance—which may be better approximated by eigenvector
centrality and functional connectivity (Koelsch et al. 2018).
116
Khalfa et al. (2008), Mitterschiffthaler et al. (2007).
117 Koelsch et al. (2006).
118 Blood et al. (1999), Gosselin et al. (2006).
119 Koelsch et al. (2013, 2018).
120
Salimpoor et al. (2013). Note that the nucleus accumbens is much more than a reward
center: see Kringelbach and Berridge (2010).
121Bach et al. (2008b). This neuroscientific finding has precursors in empirical
psychology (Nakamura 1987) and empirical musicology (Huron 1990, 1991, 1992).
Listeners are more accurate at detecting crescendi than diminuendi (Nakamura 1987), and
crescendi are more common than diminuendi in written music from a wide variety of
composers from Beethoven through Villa-Lobos (Huron 1990, 1991). Huron (1992)
proposes that this results from a general processing bias for crescendi, which composers
exploit to capture and maintain listener attention.
122 Kumar et al. (2012).
123 James et al. (2008), Koelsch et al. (2008).
124Alluri et al. (2012), James et al. (2012). For a recent finding linking prediction
precision to dopaminergic tone, see Tomassini et al. (2016).

27
Herry et al. report a similar finding—not only in humans but also in rats.125 Relatedly,
Engel and Keller found that participants listening to improvised piano music showed
greater amygdala activity as a function of the entropy of the stimulus, i.e., its
microstructural variability. 126 Tension, too, has been found to correlate with amygdala
activity—notably not only for music127 but also in response to an actor’s reading of a
short story.128 No doubt any or all of these (psycho-)acoustical features may be typical of,
even integral to, emotional experience, whether of the fear-type or not. It does not follow,
however, that if there is a crescendo, or a rough timbre, or an unpredictable or tense
passage, that therefore the emotion expressed-or-portrayed is “fear.” All or most scary
music might have such features, but not all music with such features should therefore be
considered “scary.”
[9.4] The case is somewhat different with respect to the amygdala, however. It may
actually be the case that all music that crescendos does evoke amygdala activity, and/or
that all rough, tense, unpredictable music recruits more amygdala activity (or amygdala
activity of a different sort) than does relaxing, smooth, predictable music. These are
generalities, and very hypothetical at that, but the point is an important one: where there
is messiness in the music-fear mapping, there can be clarity in a music-amygdala
mapping. The phrase “can be” should be stressed: the music-amygdala mapping promises
to be massively complex in its own right, with only the roughest outlines sketched here.
But where a music-fear mapping obscures contradictions and confusions, a music-
amygdala mapping has the potential to become progressively more clear, to gradually
bring more of that obscurity to light.
[9.5] The point is best demonstrated from a consideration of the amygdala not as a
patient, but as an agent. Hitherto much of what has been discussed has been the
amygdala’s role as a receiver of music (and music-like phenomena). Were this all there
was to it, we could call the amygdala a fear-button, or at least an emotion-button, and be
done with it. But the amygdala does not merely register responses to certain types of
musical sound, it responds to them. It is an agent of downstream change of its own. Some
such change takes place in the auditory cortex itself, by way of the amygdala’s direct
feedback. Other changes take place downstream in regions such as the hypothalamus and
brainstem, which regulate the body’s arousal systems (and the like). If the amygdala does

125Herry et al. (2007). Notably, both rats and humans exposed to such sequences showed
enhanced fear behaviors (rats less likely to explore a well-lit maze, humans showing
reduced ability to ignore angry faces), and thus “fear” can be said to have resulted from
the enhanced amygdala activity, in turn the result of unpredictability in perceived
rhythmic patterns.
126Engel and Keller (2011). Interestingly, participants were asked to guess whether
stimuli had been improvised or not, and amygdala activity correlated not with listeners’
beliefs about the stimuli, but whether they had actually been improvised (embodied in
their entropic structure).
127 Lehne et al. (2014).
128 Wallentin et al. (2011).

28
these things in response to musical sound—if it affects ongoing auditory perception and
attention, and alters the affective/arousal state of the body and brain—then whatever
those effects are labeled by the mind (fear, happiness, etc.), they are likely to be of
significant musical import. The next section explores this claim in greater detail.

WHAT THE AMYGDALA DOES

[10.1] If the amygdala were a mere “indicator light” for emotional experience—
something that “lit up” when emotions happened, giving evidence of them without having
any downstream consequences—its activities would be of limited practical interest to the
music theorist.129 The amygdala is more than this. No mere end-point in the cause-and-
effect chain that eventuates in emotional experience, the amygdala is a crucial causal
agent in that process—the process whereby perception eventuates in feeling, and feelings
unleash their concomitant effects upon attention, cognition, memory, bodily arousal, and
response tendencies. All of these phenomena, these concomitants of emotion, are
effectuated and/or modulated by the amygdala. If any of these phenomena are integral to
musical experience—I find it hard to imagine that they are not—then amygdala activity
probably is as well. And if music has the ability to arouse and modulate amygdala
activity, it too may modulate activity in these systems—if not directly, then at least
mechanically. The aim of this section is to explore these mechanics.
[10.2] A first step toward understanding what the amygdala does in the brain is to study
its input-output structure. As a general rule, the amygdala’s inputs can be conceived of as
primarily sensory-informational in nature, its outputs modulatory (Example 8). As noted,
the amygdala has a kind of “input zone” and an “output zone.” The input zone, receives
projections from all of the sensory cortices (auditory, visual, somatosensory, etc.), from
the sensory thalamus, and from higher-processing cortical regions (particularly medial
and orbitofrontal cortex, and memory-associative regions elsewhere in the medial
temporal lobe).130 The amygdala returns projections to these regions as well, but to a
large extent these return projections provide feedback—rather than relaying new
information from elsewhere in the brain.131 The amygdala thus is highly feed-forward in
its information-flow, making it not so much a network as a trigger.
[10.3] While the amygdala’s inputs can be understood to be primarily sensory-
informational, its outputs are primarily modulatory. Main output regions targeted include
the brainstem, hypothalamus, nucleus accumbens, and cortical regions associated with
emotion, motivation, body feeling, and memory. A survey of the brainstem nuclei
targeted by the amygdala’s central nucleus reveals an astounding modulatory reach:

129From the philosophical side of things, it also entails (as Panksepp [2004] notes) a “re-
representation dilemma”—if emotions give information as to the fear state of the animal,
to whom or what are they giving it? See also Dennett (1991).
130 Di Marino, Etienne, and Niddam (2016), Roy et al. (2009).
131 Hoïstad and Barbas (2008), Kumar et al. (2012).

29
among those directly targeted are the pontine attack site, various vocalization cell groups,
nuclei regulating respiratory rhythm and cardiovascular tone, and the control nuclei for
both branches of the autonomic nervous system, sympathetic and parasympathetic. 132 Of
crucial significance are the brainstem and hypothalamic nuclei targeted by the amygdala
which project neuromodulators diffusely throughout the brain, and which profoundly
affect not only high-level cognitive functioning but also basic sensory-perceptual
mechanisms. Acetylcholine, for instance (released from the pedunculopontine nucleus
and nucleus basalis), sensitizes auditory cortical neurons in a specific manner, shifting
their best-frequency response fields to better match external sound stimuli; somewhat in
contrast, histamine (released from the hypothalamus) induces a sensitization that is less
specific—an effect on gain rather than tuning.133 Norepinephrine, released from the locus
coeruleus (including via amygdala stimulation134), also heightens sensitivities to paired
tones, by means both inhibitory and excitatory, suggesting a sharpening of response
acuity.135 Similar modulatory effects in auditory regions have been observed for serotonin
and dopamine as well.136
[10.4] That effects such as these not only can influence audition, but can be induced by it,
is supported by investigations into the functional connectivity between the amygdala and
auditory cortices—i.e., the extent to which activity in one correlates with activity in the
other (and thus is believed to cause or “drive” it). Numerous studies using sounds,137
voices,138 and music139 have indicated that the amygdala modulates auditory cortical
arousal as a function of emotion. Kumar et al., for instance, in a study of auditory-cortical
and amygdala responses to pleasant and unpleasant sounds, proposed that the features of
a sound are first derived in the auditory cortices, following which the amygdala derives
their valence and then feeds back to up- or down-regulate auditory cortical activity as a
function of that valence.140 Corroborative findings (in studies using music) have been
reported by Koelsch et al. and by Liégeois-Chauvel et al. In such studies it appears that, if
the amygdala determines the valence of musical sound to be “negative” in some way or
other, it can either “turn down” activity levels in the auditory cortex, or even functionally
decouple auditory cortical regions from one another. 141 In other words, simply disliking a

132 Di Marino, Etienne, and Niddam (2016, 100 and passim).

133Ji and Suga (2008, 2013). For the effects of acetylcholine at brainstem levels, see
Schofield, Motts, and Mellott (2011).
134 Lerner et al. (2009).
135 Edeline, Manunta, and Hennevin (2011).
136
Bao et al. (2001), Hurley and Sullivan (2012).
137 Bach et al. (2008b), Kumar et al. (2012), Hoïstad and Barbas (2008), Plichta (2011).
138 Aubé et al. (2014), Fecteau et al. (2007).
139
Engel and Keller (2011), Koelsch et al. (2013), Liégeois-Chauvel et al. (2014),
Omigie et al. (2014), Perani et al. (2010).
140 Kumar et al. (2012).
141 Koelsch et al. (2013, 2018), Liégeois-Chauvel et al. (2014).

30
sound stimulus (as was the case in the Liégeois-Chauvel study) can potentially lead to
hearing it with reduced fidelity—to fairly literally tuning it out. Perani et al. report a
similar finding in infants just hours after birth. 142

HIGHER-LEVEL EFFECTS

[11.1] We turn now to musical emotion’s “high-level” effects, on domain-general

faculties such as attention, memory, and cognitive “tone” or “style.” Such effects are not
specific to music, but they are clearly relevant to it. If music alters emotion; if emotion
alters the “parameter settings” on the mind’s various attentional, mnemonic, and
contemplative faculties; and if these faculties are recruited in any way during music-
listening experiences (as it seems certain they are)—then it follows that these effects,
even if not specific to music, are nevertheless relevant to it.
[11.2] From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, the function of emotion is to
alter an organism’s response tendencies.143 In the case of fear, an animal will become
attentive to different classes of perceptual stimuli, will attend to them with different
qualities and intensities of focus, and will perform different sorts of mental operations
upon them at different rates of speed and to differing degrees of detail. Musical emotions,
one can assume, are not highly functional (in the way that fear of predators is); thus, any
cognitive changes of this sort induced by music can be assumed to be somewhat
“accidental.”144 But composers—film composers certainly, as well as composers of
absolute music, songwriters, deejays, and so on—may want to elicit any of these effects,
without caring about the specific “emotion” aroused.145 “Happiness,” for instance, has
been shown to increase the rate at which participants count backward from ten146: a
composer might want to increase cognitive speed in listeners without caring at all about
inducing any sort of “happy” state, let alone “representing” or “portraying” one.

142 Perani et al. (2010).

143E.g., Öhman and Mineka (2001), Owren et al. (2005), Panksepp (2005), but see also
Meyer (1956) and his two main influences on the subject, Dewey (1985) and MacCurdy
(1925).
144This is not to say that music is not functional in the evolutionary sense with respect to
social cohesion and the like (e.g., Wallin et al. 2000, Huron 2003; cf. Pinker 1997, Patel
2008).
145Recall the claim of Huron (1992, footnote 121) that composers use crescendo more
than diminuendo as a means of capturing and maintaining listener attention thanks to
innate processing biases, rather than any sort of emotion-category-specific
conveyance/recognition.
146 Reviewed in Västfjäll (2010).

31
[11.3] For a basic demonstration of sound’s influence on domain-general faculties like
attention and cognition, consider the acoustic startle response. 147 The response is an
automatic one: sounds reaching 80 dB with an onset of under 50 ms trigger such
responses, not only in humans but across the animal kingdom. The symptomatology of
the response is stereotyped, involving an interrupt of ongoing activities, a redirection of
the sense organs to the sound source, a buckling of the knees and contraction of the
abdominal muscles (in humans), and a vitalization of the skeletal musculature by way of
adrenaline and other hormones to prime readiness to escape or defend. Sounds of this sort
are undoubtedly found in music: Beethoven’s Third Symphony starts with two of them.
Moreover, while startle is not effectuated exclusively by way of the amygdala, the
amygdala is nonetheless an important agent in modulating startle intensity and
sensitivity.148
[11.4] In many of the previously described studies, the amygdala was seen to modulate
activity or functional connectivity not only in the auditory cortices, but also in higher-
level visual processing regions and/or in somatosensory cortex. If sound captures the
attention, one effect of such attentional capture might be to enhance responsiveness to
future sounds; but a different sort of effect might be to enhance attention to incoming
visual information, or bodily information (as demonstrated above with respect to startle).
This has been reported for crescendo relative to diminuendo; 149 and for frightening
compared to other varieties of music. 150 Though not easily demonstrated (at least at
present), the previously-described effects of amygdala activity on auditory cortical
activity are likely to extend to other structures as well. Indeed, as explicated by Fritz et
al.,151 “attention” is not located somewhere else in the brain: auditory attention is a
property of auditory cortical functioning. The mechanisms described above as “low-
level” are thus the same ones that give rise to “high-level” experiential phenomena like
attention and contemplation. Emotion, we have seen, affects them all. So too, we can
assume, does music.

CONCLUSION

[12.1] Two recent articles on musical emotion, one by Jenefer Robinson and Robert
Hatten,152 the other by Lawrence Zbikowski,153 have each, for different reasons,

147
An excellent philosophical exploration of this can be found in Robinson (1995). For
the neurobiological perspective see Koch (1999).
148 Koch (1999), Roy et al. (2008).
149 Romei et al. (2009).
150 Koelsch et al. (2013), Liégeois-Chauvel et al. (2014).
151 Fritz et al. (2007).
152
Robinson and Hatten (2012).
153 Zbikowski (2011).

32
dismissed the relevance low-level effects upon higher-level music cognition. In reference
to the proposed contribution of Juslin and Västfjäll’s “brain stem reflex” to musical
emotion,154 Robinson and Hatten write:

While it is interesting that there may be an evolutionary explanation for

some of the aversive effects due to music, the explanation does not take us
very far if our interest lies in understanding music aesthetically: very few
passages of art music can be fully explained on this model. 155

Similarly, concluding a brief but thoughtful review of various “necessary and

unmediated” effects of music upon the autonomic nervous system, Zbikowski notes the
following “methodological problem”:

None of the studies … made an attempt to distinguish between the

responses induced by listening to music and the responses induced by
listening to non-musical sound stimuli. The distinction is an important
one, for, without evidence to the contrary, we have no way of knowing
whether the observed responses are specific to music.156

[12.2] As I see it, these are true statements. And yet they do not do the logical work these
writers enlist them to do. The fact that any given mechanism, neurobiological or
otherwise, does not explain the entirety of a phenomenon as complex as musical emotion
ought to surprise no one. Similarly, to be deemed relevant to music cognition, a given
mechanism need not be specific to it, as long as it influences other processes that are. The
bar is being held too high: the question is not whether the phenomena at issue tell the
entire story of musical emotion, but whether they are characters at all. I have argued
here that they are.
[12.3] I have presented my story about musical emotion as a kind of allegory, through the
lens of a single musical emotion—fear—and a single neurological structure—the
amygdala. Fear, I have argued, is a messy concept in itself, and it maps even more
messily onto musical structure. Equally messy is its mapping onto the amygdala. There is
some reason for the fear-amygdala mapping—of all the emotions, fear is the one most
consistently associated with the amygdala. 157 But not all varieties of fear are linked to

154 Juslin and Västfjäll (2008).

155 Robinson and Hatten (2012, 83).
156 Zbikowski (2011, 42–43).
157 Vytal and Hamann (2010), but cf. Kober et al. (2008).

33
amygdala activity, 158 nor are all amygdala activities linked to fear. 159 The solution I offer
is to eliminate the messy notion of fear altogether, and to map music onto the amygdala
directly.
[12.4] The value is not purely a conceptual one, for the incorporation of the amygdala
into the music-fear schema brings with it an additional, and significant, benefit: a
mechanism for the how and why of musical emotion—which from the folk-psychological,
intuitive perspective, is still highly mysterious.160 Given that many of the findings
described here apply to rats, bats, squirrel monkeys, and the like, to the extent that the
phenomena described are relevant to music and emotion, the mechanism for this
relevance must be a basic one, a pre-conceptual one—one clearly far short of the high-
level communicative behaviors of portrayal and recognition. Theories of musical
emotion have so frequently resorted to mechanisms of this sort that I, too, often find
myself aligning with Hanslick in frustration with “feeling theory.”
[12.5] I recognize such high-level mechanics to be important to musical experience, but I
do not believe they do the fundamental work of linking music to emotion. That work, I
believe, is deeper in the “guts of the mind” and the “body of the soul”—the rich history
of our evolutionary past that lives with and through us in the present in the form of
affects, feelings, emotions, moods, motivations, drives, and desires. 161 In touching these
“guts,” music has recognizable characteristics which our conscious, contemplative minds
can identify and seek to implicate in the process. But emotions are only fractionally
accessible to consciousness, and therefore, to understand them—together with how and
why music touches them—we cannot rely on introspection alone.162
[12.6] If we return ever so briefly to the nineteenth century to inquire what Hanslick was
so upset about, we see for ourselves the limitations of what he called “feeling theory.”
Descartes had written, for instance, that, “in the Generall, … a slow measure doth excite
in us gentle, and sluggish motions, such as [among other emotions] fear.” 163 Mattheson

158 As noted by Panksepp (1998, 2004), high-intensity negative emotions whose neural
substrates are at least partially distinct from those of fear include anxiety, panic,
separation distress, pain, and inter-male aggression. Similarly, “defensive attack,”
Panksepp’s term for frightened fighting, dissociates neurally from “predatory attack,” the
latter a product of the dopaminergic “seeking” system (the same system that other
researchers call the “reward system”).
159High-intensity emotions generally appear to recruit amygdala activity, as do social
stimuli (voices and faces), startling sounds, timbrally rough sounds, sounds that
crescendo (and hence give the effect of “looming”), soundscapes that are unpredictable
(temporally or otherwise), narrative moments high in tension, and of course highly
pleasurable and even joyful stimuli.
160 Bashwiner (2010).
161 Panksepp (1998).
162
For a music-specific application of this perspective, see Hansen and Pearce (2014) and
Hansen, Vuust, and Pearce (2016).
163 Descartes (1618/1656, 6).

34
had offered that “something of the frightening and horrible” could be created by means of
“dissonances” and “harsh passages … with suitable instruments.” 164 In Rameau we were
told that “despair and all passions which lead to fury or strike violently demand all types
of unprepared dissonances, with the major dissonances particularly occurring in the
treble.”165 By no means do I advocate a return to this way of thinking. But Hanslick’s
solution to the problem I also believe to be in error. To propose “pure contemplation” as
the “only artistic, true form [of listening]” is to assume that such a thing exists. As I hope
to have demonstrated, it does not. Contemplation, particularly for the case of music, is
never pure.

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Example 1. Stimuli from Gosselin et al. (2005), composed by Bernard Bouchard “with the intention of inducing or
expressing fear,” together with ratings (in parentheses) from a musical “expert” with respect to dissonance,
unexpectedness, and irregularity (1=low, 5=high). (a) Stimulus P02. (b) Stimulus P05. (c) Stimulus P08. (d)
Stimulus P11.

(a) Stimulus P02 (1, 2, 2)

(b) Stimulus P05 (3, 2, 3)

(c) Stimulus P08 (3, 4, 4)

(d) Stimulus P11 (4, 5, 4)

Example 2. Additional analytical observations considering Bouchard fear stimuli. Goss D/U/I: ratings for each
stimulus provided by musical “expert” in Gosselin et al. (2005), using five-point scales for dissonance (D),
unexpectedness (U), and irregularity (I) (1=low, 5=high). I offer my own ratings of “irregularity” on the same scale
in column 3, together with reasoning.

Rhythmic Dissonance Goss

Stimulus Tempo
Irregularity Vertical Horizontal D/U/I
irreg (3):
variable lengths,
octatonic
P01 100 off-beat none 3, 4, 5
i –biii-bVI
emphases,
tied syncopation
irreg (3):
grouping
dissonance, natural
P02 140 none 1, 2, 2
tied minor
syncopation,
time sig. shifts

irreg (2):
hexatonic
P03 100 beat-level none 1, 2, 2
bvi
emphasis

irreg (3): diatonic

natural
P04 100 sparse, tritones and 2, 2, 3
minor
variable lengths quartals

irreg (2):
consistent
hexatonic
P05 100 eighths, none 3, 2, 3
i-bvi-#iii
beat-level
emphasis
irreg (1)
consistent 16ths, natural
P06 96 diatonic 2nds 2, 4, 3
meter minor
emphasized

irreg (5):
harmonic
variable lengths contrapuntal
P07 100 minor 2, 3, 4
syncopated ties clashes
w/ b2
time sig. shifts
irreg (4):
variable lengths,
deceleration, harmonic
P08 96 none 3, 4, 4
off-beat minor
emphases,
time sig. shifts
irreg (1):
natural
P09 44 consistent none 1, 1, 1
minor
quarters
 irreg (3):
hexatonic,
time sig. shifts,
P10 120 dim64 and min64 octatonic 2, 3, 4
variable lengths,
i-bvi-i-biii
sparse

irreg (3)
variable lengths, octatonic
P11 44 none 4, 5, 4
grouping i-biii-#vi
dissonances

irreg (4):
variable lengths,
P12 75 none octatonic 1, 4, 4
quintuplets
i-#vi-#iv-biii

irrreg (1)
7ths and passing hexatonic
P13 72 consistent 3, 5, 1
tones i - bvi
eighths

irreg (5)
variable lengths,
natural
P14 172 sparse, none 2, 2, 5
minor
inconsistent
phrasing
Example 3. (a) Fear-relevant categories in Erdmann and Becce's Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik (1927),
with average tempo and typical characteristics of range, dynamics, mode, and various other technique aspects. When
multiple characteristics are listed in columns 4–6, the most common are listed first. (b) List of abbreviations for the
present table, with example incipits listed for each. (c) Sample incipits for each category. (d) Tempo by intensity
mapping.

Contour/
Incipit Category Tempo Dynamics Mode Additional Technical Aspects
Range
desc, asc,
min, dim, oct, dom4/2, APTs, aug, triadic
1–10 Catastrophe 63 loud, cresc low, mid,
aug ato, º7, ø7
extr
Highly
oct, polyto, º7, ø7, WT, aug,
11–28 Dramatic 125 loud, cresc asc, j/f dim, min
chrom APTs, triadic ato
Agitation
min, dim,
low, desc, triadic ato, chrom, mod, aug, WT,
37–57 Night. Horror. 63 soft, cresc aug, maj,
j/f dim, cptl
chrom
loud, soft, desc, asc, dim, aug,
58–68 Night. Threat. 68 dim, aug, triadic ato
cresc low ato
min, dim,
Uncanny
69–79 122 soft, cresc low, asc chrom, aug, dim, chrom, aug, triadic ato
Agitation.
ato
93– Approaching loud, soft, min, dim,
63 low, asc hex, dim, WT, triadic ato
118 Disaster cresc ambig, WT
119– low, asc,
Creepy 75 soft min, dim oct, chrom, aug
143 med
min, dim,
144– Pursuit, Flight, loud, soft, asc, desc, ø7, º7, modality, chrom, WT,
136 chrom, dor,
198 Haste cresc low CTaug6, ostinato, maj, pent
maj
aug6, dom4/2s, oct, chrom mod.,
199– asc, desc,
Struggle 124 loud, cresc min trem, syncop, º7, chrom desc,
231 high
phryg dom
258– soft, loud, fanfare, dots, º7, oct, chrom mod,
Battle 115 asc, desc maj, min
271 cresc mixt, neap
aug, neap, dotted rhythms, º7s,
272– Excitement.
125 soft, loud desc min step desc, chrom desc, tremolo,
303 Unrest. Angst
offbeat chords, phryg dom
Excited
304– trem, aug6, º7, offbeat chords,
Crowd: 134 loud, soft asc, desc min, dim
326 dotted rhythms, phryg dom
Tumult
Excited
327– soft, cresc, chrom desc, trem, planing, hex,
Nature: Storm, 126 asc, low min, chrom
356 loud gliss, app, dom7b9,
Fire
357– aug, º7, ø7, aug6, CTaug6, maj,
Despair 51 loud low min
364 phryg dom, b2
min, phryg,
aug, º7, ø7, mod, subdivs, chrom,
365– phryg dom,
Passionate Cry 84 loud, acc desc, asc chrom LNs, chrom mod, oct,
394 chrom, b2,
chrom desc, susps, apps
ato, oct
chrom desc, phryg, aug6, dim3,
hex pole, hex, º7, ø7, planing
677– mid, desc, min, ato,
Heavy Cry 65 soft, cresc (º7s, dom4/2s, M3s, aug),
703 asc aug, chrom
CTaug6, neap, chrom M3s, mixt,
tritones, triadic ato, dom7b9
Abbreviation Full Term Examples
Ambig Harmonically ambiguous [93]
App Appoggiaturas 319
APT Accented passing tones [28], 155
Asc Ascending 155, 202, 261, 272, 319
Ato Atonal [45]
Aug Augmented chords 1
Aug6 Augmented sixth chord(s) 105, 202
b2 Flat-second scale degree 272
Chrom Chromatic 1, 58, 69, 272
Chrom desc Chromatic step-descent bass [42]
Chrom mod Chromatic modulation 202
Cptl Contrapuntal passage [42], 345
Cresc Crescendo 155
Ctaug6 Common-tone augmented sixth [156]
Desc Descending 1, 58, 364, 370
Dim Diminished 25, 58, 261, 272, 319, 370
Dom4/2 Dominant 4/2 chords [330]
Dom7b9 Dominant sevenths with flat ninths [342]
Dor Dorian passage(s) 154
Dots Dotted rhythms 25, 124, 155, 319
Gliss Glissandi [334]
Extr. Dynamic Extremes 1, 261, 272, 319, 364
Hex Hexatonic 345, 679
J/f Jump/fall contours 25, 272, 319, 364
CN Chromatic Neighbors 69, 272
Low Low range or low melody 69, 105, 124, 345, 679
Maj Major 261
Mid Midrange 58
Min Minor (chords or key) 202
Mixt Mixture 261
Mod Modulatory [54]
Neap Neapolitan chord 272
º7 Fully-diminished seventh chord(s) 319
Ø
7 Half-diminished seventh chord(s) 155
Oct Octatonic 1, 124
Pent Pentatonic [197]
Phryg Phrygian [316]
Phryg dom Phrygian dominant (Phrygian with major third) [678]
Planing Planing of a single harmony 50
Polyto Polytonality [19]
Subdivs Unusual or inconsistent subdivisions 370
Susps Suspensions [374]
Syncop Syncopations 272
Trem Tremolo 1, 155, 202, 261, 319
Triadic ato Triadic atonality 50
Tritone Prominent tritones [18]
WT Whole tone passage(s) [112]
Example 3(c). Sample incipits for each category in Ex. 3(a).

Catastrophe
Andante mosso. Tragischer Einschlag. Gewitter.

Highly dramatic agitation

Allegro. Verschied. Varianten. Einschlag.

Night. Horror.
Largo misterioso. Bange Nacht.

Night. Threat.
Andante. Drohen.

Uncanny Agitation
Moderato. Raunen u. Grausen im Walde. Unheimliche Umgebung.

Approaching Disaster
Andante tragico. Leidenschaftlich.
Creepy
Moderato.

Pursuit, flight, haste

Allegro frenetico. Rasende Flucht.

Struggle
Allegro vivace

Battle
Allegro furioso.

Excitement, Unrest, Angst

Agitato.

Excited Crowd: Tumult

Allegro furioso. Wilder Tumult.
Excited Nature: Storm, Fire
Lebhaft bewegt. Wild bewegt. Poco meno mosso. Coda. Flackernde Flammen.

Despair
Lento lugubre. Andante non troppo. Verzweifelte Klage.

Passionate cry
Largamente ma fiero. Leidenschaftlicher Ausbruch.

Heavy Cry
Largo. Adagio. Sterbescene.
 Example 3(d). Tempo-by-intensity mapping for fear categories of Ex. 3(a).
LOUD
1.0
฀Highly Dramatic Agitation (125, .94)
.9
฀Despair (51, .88)
฀Passionate Cry (84, .86)
.8 ฀Catastrophe (63, .80) ฀Struggle (124, .81)

.7 ฀Battle (115, .71)

฀Night. Threat (68, .67)
.6
฀Pursuit, Flight, Haste (136, .54)
฀Approaching Disaster (63, .53) ฀Excited Crowd: Tumult (134, .53)
.5

฀Excited Nature: Storm, Fire (126, .42)

.4

฀Excitement, Unrest, Angst (125, .33)

.3 ฀Uncanny Agitation (122, .30)

.2
฀Heavy Cry (65, .17)
฀Night. Horror (63, .14)
.1 ฀Creepy (75, .09)

SOFT
50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140

SLOW FAST
Example 4. Acoustic features of fear expressions in music across studies, as reported by Juslin and Laukka (2003).
To identify studies referred to in leftmost column, see Table 3 of the original article (Juslin and Laukka 2003, 784–
85).
Example 5. Verdi, Messa da Requiem. From the piano-vocal score, arranged for piano by
Michael Saladino, 1874. (a)-(c) Dies irae, mm. 1–9, 21–24, 31–39. (d) Tuba mirum, mm. 42–49.
(e) Mors stupebit, mm. 1–9.
(a) Dies irae, mm. 1–9

(b) Dies irae, mm. 21–24

(c) Dies irae, mm. 31–45
(d) Tuba mirum, mm. 42-49

(e) Mors stupebit, mm. 1–9.

Example 6. John Williams, Jaws (1975/2000), “Main Title and First Victim,” 0:03:36–0:04:48
on the DVD (Zanuck and Brown 2005, Universal DVD 332074). Transcribed by the author for
analytical purposes—not intended to be exact.
Example 7. Two images of the author’s brain, with amygdalae in blue. Left: brain from above, with frontal lobes
toward bottom (removed in the image to expose subcortical structures). Right: the same from the right. Imaged at
the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque, NM, on May 8, 2015. T1-weighted image processed with Slicer 3d and
FreeSurfer.
 Example 8 Information flow to and from the amygdala.
ay
l Pathw
a
Dors
dPMC
ACC
dmPFC

DA, SE,
NE, ACh,
Hist
NAc
PT THAL
pSTG vPMC
PAC PP pIFG
MGB OFC
aSTG
Ventral Pathway vmPFC
HYP

IC

AMYG
Solid gray arrows: subcortical auditory pathway.
Solid black arrows: cortical auditory pathways
LL (dorsal and ventral). Double-line gray arrows:
VTA amygdala projections to brainstem, hypothalamus,
PPN NAc and OFC. Dashed gray arrows:
DA, SE, neuromodulatory projections to cortex.
LC NE, ACh Abbreviations: ACC: anterior cingulate cortex; ACh:
SOC RN acetylcholine, aSTG: anterior superior temporal
gyrus, CN: cochlear nuclei, DA: dopamine, dmPFC:
dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, dPMC: dorsal
premotor cortex, HYP: hypothalamus, IC: inferior
CN colliculus, LC: locus coeruleus, LL: nuclei of the
lateral lemniscus, MGB: medial geniculate body of
the thalamus, NAc: nucleus accumbens, NE:
norepinephrine, OFC: orbitofrontal cortex, PAC:
primary auditory cortex, pIFG: posterior inferior
Sound frontal gyrus, PP: planum polare, PPN:
pedunculopontine nucleus, pSTG: posterior superior
temporal gyrus, PT: planum temporale, RN: raphe
nuclei, SE: serotonin, SOC: superior olivary complex,
THAL: thalamus, vmPFC: ventromedial prefrontal
cortex, vPMC: ventral premotor cortex, VTA: ventral
tegmental area