Author(s) :

Kate Takemoto.

Volume/Issue :

Abstract :

Frisson, the involuntary chills-and-goosebumps response to music and other auditory stimuli, is a psychophysiological phenomenon experienced by an estimated majority of listeners, yet its underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood. This systematic review conducted a structured search of the PubMed and Google Scholar databases to identify seven peer-reviewed studies that met the inclusion criteria for analysis, three addressing frisson directly and four addressing ASMR as indirect comparative evidence. The methodological quality of the included studies was appraised using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) and was generally moderate. Results indicate that frisson is a measurable autonomic response associated with increased heart rate, respiration, and muscle activity, and that, in the one study to test both, momentary anxiety predicted frisson intensity whereas trait Openness to Experience did not. Acoustic analyses indicate that spatially dynamic sounds, interaural asymmetry, and low-frequency tonal qualities were associated with frisson, with responses typically peaking approximately two seconds after stimulus change, suggesting higher-order neural processing rather than reflexive activation. Limited neuroimaging evidence, resting in each case on a single small study, indicates that frisson engages reward circuitry, including the ventral striatum at coordinates overlying the nucleus accumbens, alongside reduced amygdala activity. Although frisson and the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) appear to share overlapping neural substrates, the available evidence suggests they diverge in key ways: frisson appears to carry an intrinsic positive affective valence, whereas ASMR is context-dependent and recruits additional social-processing regions. Because most of the comparative evidence derives from ASMR studies, these contrasts are inferred rather than observed in frisson directly. Collectively, and within the limits of a small and heterogeneous evidence base, these findings are most consistent with an interpretation of frisson as a heterogeneous family of related responses arising from the interaction of sensory processing, emotional salience, and rewardsystem activation, an interpretation that should be regarded as a working hypothesis pending larger and more standardized studies.