How does sound affect our emotions?

Subhadeep Dutta Gupta, Research scholar in Neurobiology from NIMHANS, Bengaluru.

Written 31 Jan 2016
If we spoke with our ears, and listened through our mouth, then a kiss might
be the most romantic sound in the world.-- Jarod Kintz

Sound and Emotion -- Magnificent combination !!

Just imagine, in one melancholic, lazy afternoon, you heard the sound of rain falling on
your roof. You jumped out of your cozy bed and went upstairs to cherish it. Lo!! Then you
discover that's not actually the sounds of rain on a roof but is in fact the sounds of
mealworms eating a bat carcass. And your brain just went from relaxed rain on the roof
to 'eww' in about 300,000ths of a second.

Emotion is one of the most complicated things that the brain has to carry out, and one of
the most important drivers of emotion is sound. And the reason it's so important is
because it works underneath our cognitive radar.

Sound is capable of producing powerful reactions in the listener - whether it's a sudden
cold sweat caused by a snake's warning hiss, or the uncontrollable grin as a favourite
song from our youth comes on the radio.

Fig: Brain regions that are linked with our emotional responses to sound

Sound does not only affect our emotions our emotions also affect the way recognize
and process sound. Its the neurological phenomenon by which we shrug on hearing
signals similar to our alarm clock, and by which combat veterans suffering from post-
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can have horrifying memories stirred up by the sound of
thunder.

Emotions are closely linked to perception and very often our emotional response really
helps us deal with reality. Our auditory plasticity the process whereby our
perception of sound adapts according to the aural patterns we experience can be
influenced by strong emotions to a point where similar sounds are mistakenly yoked
together and interpreted as connoting one and the same thing.

Music and Emotion

July 21, 2015

I F S C E N T H A S A H O T L I N E T O M E M O RY, I T S E E M S M U S I C H A S A
HOTLINE TO EMOTION.

BY M A R K O A H T I S A A R I A N D K E T K I K A R A N A M
Music has the power to stimulate strong emotions within us, to the extent that it is
probably rare not to be somehow emotionally affected by music. We all know what
emotions are and experience them daily. Most of us also listen to music in order to
experience emotions. The specific mechanisms through which music evokes emotions is
a rich field of research, with a great number of unanswered questions. Why does sound
talk to our emotional brain? Why do we perceive emotional information in musical
features? Why do we feel the urge to move when hearing music? Through increasing
scientific understanding of the universal as well as the individual principles behind
music-evoked emotions, we will be able to better understand the effects that music-
listening can have and make better use of them in an informed manner.

Perhaps the primary reason for music listening is the power that music has in stirring our
emotions. Music has been reported to evoke the full range of human emotion (1, 2): from
sad, nostalgic, and tense, to happy, relaxed, calm, and joyous. Correspondingly,
neuroimaging studies have shown that music can activate the brain areas typically
associated with emotions (3): the deep brain structures that are part of the limbic system
like the amygdala and the hippocampus as well as the pathways that transmit dopamine
(for pleasure associated with music-listening). The relationship between music-listening
and the dopaminergic pathway is also behind the chills that many people report
experiencing during music-listening. Chills are physiological sensations, like the hairs
getting raised on you arm, and the experience of shivers down your spine that
accompany intense, peak emotional experiences.

Researchers found that the amount of activation in the area of the brain
linked with reward and pleasure predicted how much money a person would be
willing to spend on a new, previously unheard piece of music

However, we dont always listen to music to be moved - sometimes people use music for
other effects. For example, many people listen to music to help them concentrate or do
better in a demanding cognitive task. In spite of this, it is suspected that many of the
cognitive benefits people experience from music listening actually stem from its effects
on emotions, because positive affect can improve cognitive performance. So even
though you might not be selecting for music that induces the chills effect but just
something to help you get stuff done, the way that music strums your emotions may still
be at the root of why it helps. Thorough understanding of the connections between the
emotional and physiological effects of music listening and health requires more study
because the context for the emotional effects of music listening on individuals are so
varied. Large-scale data on listening, performance and context would be needed to
identify bigger patterns in the connections between music, emotions, and cognitive
performance.

Even with free music streaming services, people still spend a lot of money on music and
our emotional brain is responsible for the toll that music takes on our wallets. In an
interesting study published in the acclaimed journal Science, researchers found that the
amount of activation in the area of the brain linked with reward and pleasure predicted
how much money a person would be willing to spend on a new, previously unheard piece
of music (4.) The valuation of a new musical piece included activation of areas of the
brain that process sound features, the limbic areas associated with emotions, and
prefrontal areas, associated with decision-making. Increasing activity in the functional
connections between these areas and the nucleus accumbens, associated with
motivation, pleasure and reward, was connected to the willingness to spend more money
on the musical piece. The study elegantly described how processing of sound results in
activation of affective brain regions and ultimately influences decision-making.

How is it possible that something that is basically organized sound can bring
us to tears, move us, and convey deep emotional messages within its very
structure?

Music can also have more fine-grained effects on purchasing behavior and influence
decision-making regarding products other than music. In a relatively unknown and
somewhat concerning study for the free-willed person (5), playing characteristically
French music in a wine shop increased sales for wines originating from France and or
characteristically German music increased sales of wines from Germany. In another study
(6), playing classical music versus pop music in a wine shop made people choose and
purchase more expensive wines. Are people really this impressionable? Probably not. It is
certain that hearing a certain type of music wont make a person purchase something
they absolutely do not want. This power that music can have in influencing our decisions
may speak in part for the contextual nature of cognition. And the big role that music can
have as part of your everyday life.

So what underlies all the effects that music has on our emotions, thoughts, and even
decision-making? How is it possible that something that is basically organized sound can
bring us to tears, move us, and convey deep emotional messages within its very
structure? Scientific investigation of the mechanisms behind music-evoked emotions is a
rich field of enquiry within the psychology and neuroscience of music. In recent decades,
a number of attempts (7,8) at describing these mechanisms and principles have been
made. Many theories on mechanisms that stir up emotions described by scientists are
familiar to us all, but some are perhaps more surprising. For instance, the role of
memories in music-evoked emotion is quite a familiar to most people: many people have
break-up songs - pieces they listened to during that emotional time and that can
instantly bring on the emotional state experienced during the break-up even at a later
time. But did you know that researchers also speculate that music may convey
emotional information by activating the mirror neuron system? Or that your brain is very
adept at processing complex musical structure, even if youve never laid hand on an
instrument?

Mirroring: Emotions are Contagious

When two people interact, numerous mechanisms are at play that create a connection
between the individuals. For instance, without knowing it, people often tend to mimic
each others postures and speech styles during discussion. Also emotions are contagious:
according to a study (9), exposure to pictures of facial expressions of emotions activated
the same facial muscles needed to produce a similar expression and led to reports of
experiencing similar feelings in the observers. Astonishingly, this happened even if the
pictures were shown so quickly that the observers didnt experience a conscious
perception of the photo.

This mimicking and contagion of emotions may rely in part on the putative human mirror
neuron system: neurons that are active when you produce a certain movement but also
when someone else does the same - neurons to which you and other people are the
same person. A rich amount of emotional information is conveyed through movement,
including prosody, posture and facial expressions. Activation of the mirror neuron system
by these movements may help us understand others emotions, since we are modeling
the movements related to emotional expression as they were our own.

Where does the music come in, then? It is suspected that mirroring and resulting
emotional contagion does not only happen between people but also during music
listening. It sounds quite incredible, but it is possible that emotional expression in music
could also be mirrored by the brain and then give rise to the corresponding emotional
state in the listener. For instance, music could be perceived as sad because of the
commonalities it has with the prosody of sad speech (low pitch, low volume, slow, dark
timbre [9].)

Movement: Music Moves You, Even If You Refuse to Dance

Humans are one of the extremely few species that can synchronize their body movement
to music (even babies do it - take a look at this popular video clip of 11-month-old infants
trying to sync to the beat!). Brain imaging studies have shown that the motor areas of
the brain are active even during passive listening to musical rhythms without any
movement (11). It has been said that music prepares people for movement. But how is
this special property of music connected to the experience of emotions?

It has been proposed (12) that the aforementioned human mirror neuron system could in
fact also encode the movements conveyed by melodies. This would mean that the
system might process movement in music like physical movement. In other words, an
upward going melody would be processed in the brain as upward movement. And as
upward movement is typically related to experiences like jumping for joy, this mirroring
in the brain (however, without overt movement) would contribute to the recognition and
experience of the emotion conveyed by the music.

It also seems that acoustic features of music as well as characteristics of physical

movement may be universally interpreted to represent specific emotions. An intriguing
study (13) compared how subjects from the US and from an isolated tribe in Cambodia
that had never been exposed to Western music, experienced the emotion expressed by
acoustic properties of melodies and the movement characteristics of an animated ball.
Subjects were asked to manipulate the melodies and the movement of the animated ball
for their tempo or rate of bouncing, direction of movement and so on (to best match a
specific basic emotion like fear, happiness, sadness and anger). The study found that
similar physical movement of the ball and similar movements in music represented the
same emotions regardless of the subjects exposure to Western music (for example, up
either as movement or as a melody increasing in pitch would tend to be related to happy
instead of sad).

In summary, movement, be it in musical or physical form, is one important way of

conveying emotions. Thus, people who say that they are moved by music are more right
than they realize!

Your Brain is Musical, Even If You Think You Might Not Be

Very few people consider themselves experts in music or knowledgeable about all the
intricacies of music theory. Irrespective of this, all people have the basic neural
mechanisms needed to automatically perceive and analyze the structure and rules of
music. Irrespective of the level of music training, the brain can perform complex
analytical operations on musical information (14); and even without explicit music
training, people very quickly learn the regularities typical for the music that they are
exposed to: the keys, the ways that certain chords follow each other, and how melodies
typically start and end (15.) Therefore, through mere exposure, people learn to predict
and anticipate the movements of the music. Pleasure from music may partly stem from
expectations that are based on musical regularities and the way these expectations are
fulfilled or violated as the composition unfolds in time as well as the tension experienced
while waiting for this resolution. In fact, dopamine levels have been found to peak before
the release of this tension created by music, that special moment in a melody that gives
you the chills (16.)

All in all, music-evoked emotions are a complex phenomenon that tap into many of the
same mechanisms as other emotion-evoking phenomena. Obviously, there is in most
cases a clear distinction between the two. Otherwise, listening to sad music might make
a person always utterly despondent. Why is it then that sad music, and the sad feelings
that it evokes, are still a pleasurable experience for the listener? It has been
suggested that this could be due to the fact that similar to the endorphins the body
releases in response to physical pain (responsible for the runners high), emotional
pain results in the release of a hormone called prolactin, causing feelings of gratification
and relaxation (10.) Perhaps the greatest gift of music lies in its capacity allow people to
experience emotions without the burden of having to experience the life events that lead
to them. We can experience even extreme emotions in a controlled manner, at will, in
comfortable circumstances.

Emotions are one of the most fascinating features of the human mind. Music
is an equally extraordinary characteristic. Understanding the special
interaction between the two may take us closer to understanding the
fundamental nature of both.

Investigation of the vast array of processes that are suggested to underlie music-evoked
emotions will surely continue to keep scientists busy in the future. Uncovering the ways
in which music evokes emotion will provide revelations into why music has such power in
influencing listeners, and shed light on the interplay between physiological, cognitive,
social and cultural factors in music-evoked emotions. Understanding the connections
between these functions would help us use music in an informed way, for example to
help cognitive functioning and emotional wellbeing. Importantly, the science will give
insight into how the emotional effects of music could be more systematically harnessed
to develop clinical applications.

B Y M A R KO A H T I S A A R I A N D K E T K I K A R A N A M
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