How music evokes emotions

We are all sensitive to music. Whether instrumental or with lyrics, she is able to make us experience emotions. Researchers from the University of Turku (Finland) have discovered what types of neural mechanisms underlie emotional responses to music. The study was published on December 24, 2020 in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

A vector of strong emotions

For this study, the researchers called on 102 participants. They had them listen to music that evokes emotions while their brain functions were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). To decipher how brain activity works, they used a machine learning algorithm to map the regions of the brain that are activated when different emotions induced by music are separated from each other.

Thus, they were able to discover which regions of the brain are activated when the participants in the experiment watch videos that evoke strong emotions. Similarly, they looked at which regions were activated in the participants when they listened to music, and what emotions this aroused in them.

“Based on auditory and motor cortex activation, we were able to accurately predict whether the research subject listened to happy or sad music.says Vesa Putkinen, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku. The auditory cortex processes the acoustic elements of music, such as rhythm and melody. The activation of the motor cortex, again, may be related to the fact that music inspires feelings of movement in listeners, even when listening to music while standing still in an MRI machine.”

Differences between movies and pure music

According to the researchers, the emotions evoked by movies and music are partly based on the functioning of different mechanisms in the brain. Movies activate the deepest parts of the brain that regulate emotions in real-life situations, while music doesn’t necessarily activate those areas.

They hypothesize that this is because movies can more realistically “copy” real-life events that evoke emotions and thereby activate innate emotional mechanisms. Regarding the music, the rendering is different because it is more based on cultural influences and the personal history of each individual.

If the emotions induced by music are traditionally studied through classical instrumental music, researchers have limited themselves to this musical register in particular. They nevertheless took care that the music listened to by the participants did not have words, so that the latter would not have repercussions on the emotions of the participants.