The Power of Music
I have often wondered what it is about music that elicits emotions. Philosophers and biologists have asked the question for centuries, noting that humans are universally drawn to music.
Some scientists conclude that music’s influence may be a chance event, arising from its ability to hijack brain systems built for other purposes such as language, emotions and movement. As Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker famously puts it, music is “auditory cheesecake”, a confection crafted to tickle the areas of the mind that evolved for more important functions. But as a result of chance, music seems to offer a novel system of communication rooted in emotions rather than meaning. Recent data show, for example, that music reliably conveys certain sentiments: what we feel when we hear a piece of music is remarkably similar to what everybody in the room is experiencing. Emerging evidence also indicates that music brings out predictable responses across cultures and among people of widely varying musical and cognitive abilities.
Throughout recorded history, people have attempted to explain music’s sway over the human spirit. Music has been labelled everything from a gift of the heavens to a tool of the Devil, from an extension of mathematics to a side effect of language processing. Indeed, music has been found to excite brain regions involved in understanding and producing language, including Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, both located on the left hemisphere on the surface of the brain. Thus, musical syntax – for instance, the order of chords in a phrase – could have risen from the mechanisms that evolved to organize and understand grammar. But tunes also recruit other brain systems, principally perhaps those governing emotions such as fear, joy and sorrow.
Music’s simultaneous activation of diverse brain circuits seems to produce some remarkable effects. Several pieces of research indicate that music reliably conveys the intended emotions in all people who hear it. The musical tongue may also transcend more fundamental communication barriers. In studies conducted over the past decades, a cognitive research team played music for both autistic and non-autistic children, comparing those with similar language skills, and asked the kids to match the music to emotions. They found that kids’ ability to recognize different feelings in music did not depend on their diagnosis. Autistic and typical children with similar verbal skills performed equally well, indicating that music can reliably convey feelings even in people whose ability to pick up emotion-laden social cues, such as facial expressions or tone of voice, is severely compromised.
Music’s ability to convey feelings may underlie one of its most important benefits. In most cultures, music is always a communal event: everyone gets together to sing, dance and play instruments. Even in Western societies, which uniquely differentiate musical performers from listeners, people enjoy music together in a wide variety of settings: dancing at a wedding or a night club, singing hymns in church, crooning with their kids, Christmas carolling and singing “Happy Birthday” at a party. The popularity of such rituals suggests that music confers social cohesiveness, perhaps by creating empathetic connections among members of a group.
Music also bestows advantages on us as individuals. Underlying our conscious impressions of a tune are psychological effects that can improve our mental and physical well-being. Studies show that upbeat, tense or exciting music can physically excite the listener, triggering the body’s fight and flight response: heart and breathing rates increase, a person may break out in a sweat, and adrenaline enters the blood-stream. This “pumping up” effect explains why so many people enjoy listening to rock while they work out – the music primes the psychological systems needed for high-energy movement. Energizing melodies tend to boost our mood in general, waking us up if we are feeling tired and creating a sense of excitement in any situation. On the other hand, music can be calming, reducing the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the blood, lowering heart and respiration rates, and alleviating pain, according to several studies.
Karen Schrock, Scientific American Mind