Sunday, October 8, 2023

Teleology of goosebumps

Why do we get goosebumps? Here's a paper about it. The medical term is "emotion piloerection," and one theory states "the vigilance [theory of origin of goosebumps] is loosely based in an evolutionary explanation involving fight-or-flight and attention mechanisms. Essentially, the idea is that changes in the environment require attention due to the possibility of danger. For example, increased volume [in music] is associated with approaching [threats], and changes in tempo or the introduction of new sounds may signal some new danger in one's environment. Broadly, this would suggest that attention and aspects of knowledge (e.g., surprise, uncertainty) are the key experiences that would activate the SNS [sympathetic nervous system, or flight and fright response] and yield piloerection." You can read the whole paper at https://osf.io/8va9w/download

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