Strong emotional feelings induced by music are usually accompanied by heightened physiological arousal as reflected by increased skin conductance responses (SCRs). The aim of this study was to demonstrate that SCRs can be suppressed by musical events; cognitive-emotional processing of music in the central nervous system may lead to decreases in sympathetic activity and transient blocking of sweat gland innervation. We recruited non-musicians and recorded their real-time SCRs during the presentation of musical excerpts. Among 48 musical excerpts, a few excerpts were found to transiently reduce SCR amplitude to a level below the resting control value (maked by '＊').

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