This is Part 3 of Dr. Arthur W. Harvey's 5-part article, "Raise Your EQ With Music". The References are in Part 5.
by Dr. Arthur W. Harvey, B.S., M.M., D.M.A.
A revolution in understanding how we experience and communicate emotions was begun by Manfred Clynes [18] linking the movement of music with emotion through the body. Clynes shows in his development of Sentic Theory the exact connection between the physiology of emotional experience and its precise musical counterparts in musical gesture. He considers emotion and its expression as one functional system. He has developed a precise way of defining and measuring certain specific emotional states. According to Clynes, "...the qualities of the spectrum of emotions are more precise by far than the words used to describe them."
Each of the seven basic feeling states - anger, hate, grief, love, sex, joy, and reverence - has its own characteristic gesture, which he calls its "essentic" form. Emotions reflect and affect the quality of life, and according to Clynes the following are characteristics of the state of emotion, its expression, and its generation:
EMOTION STATES:
1. Each basic emotion is a unique experience.
2. To each basic emotion there corresponds a characteristic brain pattern.
3. Each emotional state has a characteristic inertia, in terms of brain and bodily processes. Once it has been established, it will persist for a duration of time.
4. An emotion will tend to confine specific action patterns according to its nature over a period of time.
5. Hormonal and cardiovascular changes occur together with an emotional state. The extent and type of these changes will depend on the nature of the specific emotion and also on the attitude of control by the individual. Hormonal changes, in sum, may predispose a person to experience motion.
6. Memory, unconscious, and autonomic processes influence the control functions relating to emotional states.
7. The experience of emotions is influenced by age, sex, genetic inheritance, and diurnal, seasonal, and other biologic rhythms.
EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION:
1. The expression of emotion is an essential aspect of its nature. Emotion needs to be expressed, much as a control system needs to respond to its input until the desired output is obtained.
2. Expression has an effect on the intensity of the state of emotion. It can both charge (increase) and discharge (decrease) the intensity.
GENERATION OF EMOTION:
1. The generation of emotion occurs through perception of and changes in our existential circumstances: our relationships with others, our environment, our losses and our gains, our freedom to pursue our needs, and our self-image.
2. Emotion can also be generated purely through the imagination— by imagining and remembering persons, forms, qualities, and situations.
3. All these processes can be variously affected by drugs and by specific electrical stimulation of the brain.
EMOTIONS AND ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION:
1. Emotions play a crucial part in our interactions with our social and natural environment.
2. Our drives and mental energy are affected specifically by our emotions.
3. The degree of crowding—and its effect on privacy and intimacy— affects the experience of emotional states.
4. Processes of habituation and adaptation also affect the experience of emotion in a specific environment.
In the search for terminology to describe emotions, Clynes calls a specific emotional state a sentic state. The word "sentic" is derived from the Latin root sentire which is also the root of the words sentiment and sensation. Sentics is the term he developed to specifically denote the brain state and its corresponding experience generally associated with the word "emotion".
Raise Your EQ with Music - Part 1
Raise Your EQ with Music - Part 2
Raise Your EQ with Music - Part 4
Raise Your EQ with Music - Part 5 - References
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