Viewing Music Through a Brunswikian Lens

This chapter considers a third paradox regarding musical emotions. Emotions can generally be communicated accurately from a musician to a listener based on musical features, despite the fact that different circumstances offer very different features to the performer's and listener's disposal. It pays particular attention to Egon Brunswik's theory of visual perception, i.e. his so-called ‘lens model’, which sought to depict the relationship between an ‘organism’ and its ‘environment’, and, in particular, how visual impressions are ‘mediated’ by a number of imperfect ‘cues’ in the environment that the organism is utilizing to make ‘inferences’ about perceptual objects.