{"id":3222,"date":"2015-03-15T20:34:55","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T20:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=3222"},"modified":"2016-08-20T15:23:55","modified_gmt":"2016-08-20T15:23:55","slug":"chills-and-thrills-why-some-people-love-music-and-others-dont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/chills-and-thrills-why-some-people-love-music-and-others-dont\/","title":{"rendered":"Chills and thrills: why some people love music \u2013\u00a0and others don’t"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nikki Rickard<\/a>, Monash University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Think of your favourite piece of music. Do you get shivers when the music swells or the chorus kicks in? Or are the opening few bars enough to make you feel tingly?<\/p>\n

Despite having no obvious survival value, listening to music can be a highly rewarding activity. It\u2019s one of the most pleasurable activities with which people engage.<\/p>\n

But in a study published today<\/a> in Current Biology, Spanish and Canadian researchers report on a group of \u201cmusic anhedonics\u201d \u2013 literally, those who do not enjoy music.<\/p>\n

This is an intriguing phenomenon, and we presume very rare.<\/p>\n

Importantly, these people are not \u201camusic<\/a>\u201d \u2013 an affliction that often results from acquired or congenital damage to parts of the brain required to perceive or interpret music. In this study, the \u201cmusic anhedonics\u201d perceive music in the same way as the rest of the population.<\/p>\n

Nor are they people who generally don\u2019t enjoy pleasure \u2013 they are not depressed, nor highly inhibited, and they are just as sensitive as other people to other types of non-musical rewards (such as food, money, sex, exercise and drugs).<\/p>\n

They simply don\u2019t experience chills or similar responses to pleasurable music in the way that other people do. They\u2019re just not that into music.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got chills \u2013 they\u2019re multiplying<\/h2>\n

When we listen to pleasurable music, the \u201cpleasure chemical<\/a>\u201d dopamine is released in the striatum<\/a>, a key part of the brain\u2019s reward system<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Importantly, music activates the striatum just like other rewarding stimuli, such as food and sex. During anticipation of the peak \u2013 or \u201chotspot<\/a>\u201d as music psychologist John Sloboda<\/a> calls it \u2013 in the music, dopamine is released in the dorsal (or upper) striatum.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
madalyn_k\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-NC-ND<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During the peak, when we experience chills and other signs that our body\u2019s autonomic nervous system<\/a> \u2013 responsible for regulating involuntary body functions \u2013 is being aroused, dopamine is released in the nearby ventral striatum.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s going on in the brains of music anhedonics?<\/p>\n

The authors offer a neurobiological explanation. While many types of pleasurable stimuli activate the same broad reward circuit in the brain, there are some differences depending on the type of stimulus. It is possible that the pattern of brain regions specifically activated by music pleasure, including the connection from auditory regions which perceive music to the reward centres, are slightly different in these individuals than in other people.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t unusual as we know that there can be enormous differences in how rewarding (and potentially addictive) other rewards such as food, sex, money and drugs can be to different individuals, but it is rare to get no pleasurable response to these rewards. Is the story more complex then?<\/p>\n

Bittersweet symphony<\/h2>\n

Music is a complex phenomenon \u2013 it affects us in multiple ways, and is used for many purposes. While pleasure is a popular reason for music listening, we are also drawn to music for other reasons. Sometimes the music isn\u2019t pleasant at all.<\/p>\n

\u2018Pleasant\u2019 is subjective, of course.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our attraction, our need, and sometimes perhaps dependence on sad, angry or even frightening music flies in the face of evolutionary theory \u2013 why seek out something emotionally negative?<\/p>\n

Insight into our uses of music is however being achieved via music psychology \u2013 a rapidly expanding field which draws on research across numerous domains including cognitive neuroscience, social psychology and affective computing<\/a> (the science of human-computer interaction where the device can detect and respond to its user\u2019s emotions).<\/p>\n

In a study<\/a> involving more than 1,000 people, Swedish music psychologist Alf Gabrielsson<\/a> showed that only a little over half of strong experiences with music involve positive emotions.<\/p>\n

Many involved \u201cmixed emotions\u201d (think nostalgic or bittersweet love songs), and about one in ten involve negative emotions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
William Brawley\/Flickr (cropped)<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Non-positive\u2019 can be good<\/h2>\n

We listen to music that makes us feel like this for many reasons. We can use it to help express how we\u2019re feeling \u2013 sometimes this might make the problem worse (such as when we use music to ruminate), but other times it helps to give voice to an emotion we otherwise could not communicate.<\/p>\n

As a result, we may feel more emotionally aware or stable afterwards.<\/p>\n

We also use music to solve problems, to look at our situation in a different light, to energise us or to relax us, and often to avoid or distract us \u2013 all well-known strategies for managing or regulating emotions.<\/p>\n

How about some tech house to energise you \u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u2026 or some new age relaxation tunes to chill out.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Music can also help us connect to others. Even if we don\u2019t get a buzz from the music normally, when we listen with others, the enhanced social connectivity can be highly satisfying.<\/p>\n

A 2012 study<\/a> showed that individuals who listened to music with close friends or their partners showed significantly stronger autonomic responses than those who listened alone.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
xmartenx\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We might better empathise with the emotional or mental states of others, and at times, music feels like a \u201cvirtual friend\u201d, providing solace and comfort when needed, and perhaps even stimulating release of the stress reducing and affiliation hormone oxytocin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All these uses of music can be beneficial for our \u201ceudaimonic well-being<\/a>\u201d; in other words, for enhancing our engagement and purpose in life, rather than just our pleasure.<\/p>\n

They also involve a distributed set of connected brain regions other than just the reward circuit. This means that these positive effects of music may be preserved even when the typical pleasure response is not experienced.<\/p>\n

Another feature of music that distinguishes it from many other rewarding stimuli is that it is an artform. And as an artform, it can be appreciated aesthetically, in an intellectual or analytical \u2013 rather than emotional \u2013 manner.<\/p>\n

We can listen to a piece oozing with tragedy such as Albinoni\u2019s Adagio in G minor or Trent Reznor\u2019s Hurt \u2013\u00a0listen below \u2013 but feel awe and beauty in the sophisticated score of the composer and perfect execution of the performers. This might explain why some of the music anhedonics in this study still reported feeling some pleasure to music, even when their bodies weren\u2019t along for the ride.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n

Reward circuitry is also activated by aesthetically beautiful stimuli, but other frontal brain regions involved in aesthetic judgment are also activated. It may be possible then for music anhedonics to still appreciate and enjoy music, even if their reward brain circuitry differs a little from those of us who can experience intense physical responses to music.<\/p>\n

And of course, music anhedonics might still find music a useful way to express or regulate their own emotions, and to connect to others. Or are music anhedonics also music \u201caneudaimonics\u201d?<\/p>\n

In fact, we know so little about this fascinating, previously \u201chidden\u201d phenomenon that this study opens the door for so many more studies \u2013 which is rewarding all of itself.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nikki Rickard, Monash University Think of your favourite piece of music. Do you get shivers when the music swells or the chorus kicks in? Or are the opening few bars enough to make you feel tingly? Despite having no obvious survival value, listening to music can be a highly rewarding activity. It\u2019s one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":6788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3222"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3222"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6789,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3222\/revisions\/6789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}