Dataset Information

Mapping aesthetic musical emotions in the brain.

ABSTRACT: Music evokes complex emotions beyond pleasant/unpleasant or happy/sad dichotomies usually investigated in neuroscience. Here, we used functional neuroimaging with parametric analyses based on the intensity of felt emotions to explore a wider spectrum of affective responses reported during music listening. Positive emotions correlated with activation of left striatum and insula when high-arousing (Wonder, Joy) but right striatum and orbitofrontal cortex when low-arousing (Nostalgia, Tenderness). Irrespective of their positive/negative valence, high-arousal emotions (Tension, Power, and Joy) also correlated with activations in sensory and motor areas, whereas low-arousal categories (Peacefulness, Nostalgia, and Sadness) selectively engaged ventromedial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. The right parahippocampal cortex activated in all but positive high-arousal conditions. Results also suggested some blends between activation patterns associated with different classes of emotions, particularly for feelings of Wonder or Transcendence. These data reveal a differentiated recruitment across emotions of networks involved in reward, memory, self-reflective, and sensorimotor processes, which may account for the unique richness of musical emotions.

SUBMITTER: Trost W

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3491764 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Mapping aesthetic musical emotions in the brain.

Trost Wiebke W Ethofer Thomas T Zentner Marcel M Vuilleumier Patrik P

Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) 20111215 12

Music evokes complex emotions beyond pleasant/unpleasant or happy/sad dichotomies usually investigated in neuroscience. Here, we used functional neuroimaging with parametric analyses based on the intensity of felt emotions to explore a wider spectrum of affective responses reported during music listening. Positive emotions correlated with activation of left striatum and insula when high-arousing (Wonder, Joy) but right striatum and orbitofrontal cortex when low-arousing (Nostalgia, Tenderness). ...[more]

PMID: 22178712

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Project description:Mindfulness meditation is a form of self-regulatory training for the mind and the body. The relationship between mindfulness meditation and musical aesthetic emotion processing (MAEP) remains unclear. This study aimed to explore the effect of temporary mindfulness meditation on MAEP while listening to Chinese classical folk instrumental musical works. A 2 [(groups: mindfulness meditation group (MMG); control group (CG)] × 3 (music emotions: calm music, happy music, and sad music) mixed experimental design and a convenience sample of university students were used to verify our hypotheses, which were based on the premise that temporary mindfulness meditation may affect MAEP (MMG vs. CG). Sixty-seven non-musically trained participants (65.7% female, age range: 18-22 years) were randomly assigned to two groups (MMG or CG). Participants in MMG were given a single 10-min recorded mindfulness meditation training before and when listening to music. The instruments for psychological measurement comprised of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Self-report results showed no significant between-group differences for PANAS and for the scores of four subscales of the FFMQ (p > 0.05 throughout), except for the non-judging of inner experience subscale. Results showed that temporary mindfulness meditation training decreased the negative emotional experiences of happy and sad music and the positive emotional experiences of calm music during recognition and experience and promoted beautiful musical experiences in individuals with no musical training. Maintaining a state of mindfulness while listening to music enhanced body awareness and led to experiencing a faster passage of musical time. In addition, it was found that Chinese classical folk instrumental musical works effectively induced aesthetic emotion and produced multidimensional aesthetic experiences among non-musically trained adults. This study provides new insights into the relationship between mindfulness and music emotion.

Project description:BackgroundMany studies have examined the perception of musical emotion using excerpts from familiar music that includes highly expressed emotions to classify emotional choices. However, using familiar music to study musical emotions in people with acquired hearing loss could produce ambiguous results as to whether the emotional perception is due to previous experiences or listening to the current musical stimuli. To overcome this limitation, we developed new musical stimuli to study emotional perception without the effects of episodic memory.MethodsA musician was instructed to compose five melodies with evenly distributed pitches around 1 kHz. The melodies were created to express the emotions of happy, sad, angry, tender, and neutral. To evaluate whether these melodies expressed the intended emotions, two methods were applied. First, we classified the expressed emotions of melodies with selected musical features from 60 features using genetic algorithm-based k-nearest neighbors. Second, forty-four people with normal hearing participated in an online survey regarding the emotional perception of music based on dimensional and discrete approaches to evaluate the musical stimuli set.ResultsTwenty-four selected musical features produced classification for intended emotions with an accuracy of 76%. The results of the online survey in the normal hearing (NH) group showed that the intended emotions were selected significantly more often than the others. K-means clustering analysis revealed that melodies with arousal and valence ratings corresponded to representative quadrants of interest. Additionally, the applicability of the stimuli was tested in 4 individuals with high-frequency hearing loss.ConclusionBy applying the individuals with NH, the musical stimuli were shown to classify emotions with high accuracy, as expressed. These results confirm that the set of musical stimuli can be used to study the perceived emotion in music, demonstrating the validity of the musical stimuli, independent of innate musical bias such as due to episodic memory. Furthermore, musical stimuli could be helpful for further studying perceived musical emotion in people with hearing loss because of the controlled pitch for each emotion.

Dataset Information

Mapping aesthetic musical emotions in the brain.

Publications

Mapping aesthetic musical emotions in the brain.

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