When I first began researching my topic, I was not organized at all and it severely hindered my progress. In order to avoid annoying setbacks like forgetting a door-opening question that I was about to look into or misplacing a great article, I opened up a blank Word document and used it document my thought process and findings in real time. I am going to copy and paste what I'll call my "research progression" into this post without changing anything so that anyone who is interested may see every step as I assemble my project. I will still be using the original Word document to log my daily research because Word's ergonomics are infinitely better than Blogger's, but I plan to update this post about once a week to add that week's content. *I see that there are some cross-formatting issues between Word and Blogger, unfortunately, so it is not going to be as organized on here as it is on Word... Oh well...
The Science of Stoke:
How are physical processes able to have such a
profound effect on our moods/emotions (i.e. being “moved” by music or art, or
being elevated to an almost euphoric state while performing a favorite
activity)?
·
“Why Music Makes You Happy” – Discovery
News (http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/music-dopamine-happiness-brain-110110.htm)
“Music chills: Why they give us
thrills” – Science Daily (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110112111117.htm)
“Why Music Listening Makes Us Feel
Good” – Psychology Today (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-musical-self/201101/why-music-listening-makes-us-feel-good)
o
These first three articles, two of which
reference the same study by McGill University, make it clear that music that
the listener finds intensely pleasurable and/or emotionally impactful can cause
the release of dopamine (a “reward-chemical” intertwined with eating, sleeping,
sex, and other activities deemed necessary for survival) in the brain.
o
While dopamine explains, at least
partially, the physical pleasure we enjoy from certain music (i.e. the “music
chills”), it does not explain the emotional connection that often causes this
seemingly misplaced release of dopamine.
o
So, as is customary with research, these
articles have provided a bit of insight (though nothing I didn’t already
suspect) while simultaneously posing a new question: how does music arouse, if not induce, emotion?
·
“Emotional Effects of Music: Production
Rules” by Klaus R. Scherer & Marcel R. Zentner – Oxford University Press (http://psy2.ucsd.edu/~charris/SchererZentner.pdf)
“Why Does Music Make Us Feel?” by
Mark Changizi – Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-does-music-make-us-fe/)
“Why Do We Like What We Like?” – An
interview of author and Yale psychology professor, Paul Bloom. Taken from NPR.
(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128721732)
“Music and Emotion
Living apart together: a relationship
between music psychology and music therapy” by Annemiek Vink – University of
North Carolina at Charlotte (http://www.mir.uncc.edu/docs/papers/others/Vink_Annemiek_music_and_emotion.htm)
“Crossmodal transfer of emotion by
music” by Nidhya Logeswaran & Joydeep Bhattacharya (http://eprints.gold.ac.uk/4213/1/NSL25933.pdf)
o
So, from these articles and
publications, I have uncovered a few key pieces of information:
-
The pleasure we draw from things is not based solely on what those things are,
also but what we believe them to be (Bloom, 2010). In other words, factors such
as a piece’s history, the hype or mystique surrounding its creator, and even
any personal experiences associated with it can all significantly affect the
level of enjoyment and the strength of the connection that the
viewer/reader/listener/etc. feels.
-
Many elements of music—namely pitch, intensity, rhythm, and tempo—have been
related to human speech and movement, confirming that music
is, in fact, an abstract form of language (Changizi, 2009). From its earliest
beginnings until now, music has been meant
to convey messages and elicit emotional responses. While we are still not sure
exactly how this happens, we at least know why. Further, we also now know at
least one way which technical elements of music are able to emotionally affect
the listener, whereas we were only certain about emotionally evocative lyrics
before (it is not difficult to see how the meaning of lyrics can be emotionally
charged). This doesn’t apply to all cases, however—take a soaring, cosmic,
guitar solo, for example; mercurial beyond belief with tone, and maybe
intensity, being the only easily identifiable features, yet still some of the
most emotionally charged music out there. So, with this information, we will
leave music for now as my research has indicated that any further questions on
the matter have yet to be answered by anyone, and instead move back to the
general from the specific.
* Handbook of Positive Psychology by
C.R. Snyder & Shane J. Lopez – Oxford Press (http://books.google.com/books?id=2Cr5rP8jOnsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)
* Flow: The Psychology of Optimal
Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (http://books.google.com/books?id=V9KrQgAACAAJ)
* “Finding Flow” by Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi – Psychology Today (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199707/finding-flow)
* “Core Principles for Rapidly Attaining
Flow” by Sean Hodge – TutsPlus (http://design.tutsplus.com/articles/core-principles-for-rapidly-attaining-creative-flow--psd-128)
* “How to Achieve the Creative State of
Flow” by Victor Stachura – Pick The Brain (http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/how-to-achieve-the-creative-state-of-flow/)
o
The first bullet point here is the
Wikipedia page on “flow” that Dr. Preston showed me. Its works cited page has
served as the central hub for this section, so I marked the entry with an
asterisk and didn’t indent it. All resources stemming from the page—either by
coming straight from its works cited page or just by directly pertaining to the
topic of flow—I indented beneath it and also marked with asterisks.
o
Some of the resources here are
full-length books whose complete content I don’t have immediate access to, but
I included them anyways because it is from them that most ideas regarding flow
originated, so it only seems right to give them mention. Also, I may purchase
and read one or more of these books for literary analyses but, even if I don’t,
there are still some sample texts with good information in them. The other
resources are articles that are much more concise, and plenty comprehensive for
my purposes. Please note that not all of these articles are to be used to official,
cited purposes, so some of them are less ‘credible’ than the types of resources
that I would use for a research paper. These are MY personal notes, after all,
so as long as the content makes sense to me and is in perfect accordance with
the more credible sources, I won’t hesitate to include it. In other words, if
it contributes to my thought process regarding the matter, it cannot be
neglected and it’s going in here. Also, again, this is not a static post, so
there will most likely be additions to this section (as well as all others),
and anything that is currently in here is liable to be changed or removed.
o
To BRIEFLY sum up the resources above:
flow is a state marked by complete and total focus/immersion, significantly
increased productivity, distorted perception of time, loss of self-awareness,
rewarding feelings of accomplishment and enjoyment, and other factors. Flow is
said to occur when the subject is completely focused on a task with as few
distractions present as possible, and when that task meets, but doesn’t exceed
(at least not by much) the subject’s level of skill. Naturally, the best way to
facilitate flow is to create these circumstances by: establishing a clear goal
that is challenging yet attainable, working consistently and diligently to
achieve that goal, minimizing distractions (finding a quiet and secluded area
free of anything that could threaten focus), etc.
·
“The Psychology of Emotions, Feelings
and Thoughts” by Mark Pettinelli (http://cnx.org/content/m14358/latest/)
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