Music Cognition and Aesthetic Attitudes

This study develops a theory about the interaction between music cognition and affective response. The theory demonstrates how musical thinking, knowledge, and decision-making result in qualitative musical behavior. It reports new findings about the cognitive representation of musical structures, imagery as an auditory-phenomenological descriptor of music, aesthetic response as an outcome of specific cognitive decisions, and the value of music in cross-cultural human development. Each of seven essays identifies a problem in music psychology that is critical to an explanation of the musical process, reviews the literature relevant to that problem, and, through systematic philosophical analysis, offers a solution. This book will interest music philosophers, and psychologists working in the areas of cognition, aesthetics, music theory, music education, and music therapy.