# Music Neuroscience Discussion



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

The last thread is useless because I couldn't edit the OP to update the references. On the recommendation of _science_, I have instead created a blog post which you can refer to, as I should be able to update it indefinitely.

This thread should still be a good centre for discussion regarding either specific papers or general issues.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Thanks for your work in listing relevant papers. I hope to be able to read several and start to think more about these issues, but I think it will take time.

I've always been fascinated with consciousness, free will (or not), and the brain. There's obviously a long (very, very long?) way to go to fully understand the brain and thinking, and it's frustrating that progress is difficult. Neuroscientists are learning at a fast rate, however, and it's always a huge mistake to underestimate the rate of learning about reality.

While there are many features of the brain that are hugely intriguing, I've long felt that understanding how the brain responds to music will require huge breakthroughs and reveal an enormous amount of the general workings of the brain. When did you start reading about music neuroscience? My introduction was through the books Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks and especially This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. I have not read any technical papers yet.


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## delallan (Jan 4, 2011)

I took a quick glance at the listing of articles you've compiled (thank you!) I would very much like to read 'Toward a better understanding of the relation between music preference, listening behaviour, and personality' in Psychology of Music (2011). The abstract of this article suggests that there is a strong correlation between neuroticism and classical music as a preference. Interesting!


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> While there are many features of the brain that are hugely intriguing, I've long felt that understanding how the brain responds to music will require huge breakthroughs and reveal an enormous amount of the general workings of the brain. When did you start reading about music neuroscience? My introduction was through the books Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks and especially This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. I have not read any technical papers yet.


I think you're right about the potential consequences of a fuller understanding of music. For starters, one of the areas that interests me most (and which I may well foreground in my research later in life) is the connection between music and language. Although they have some distinct processing mechanisms, the brain regions that they use overlap to a great extent, which is unsurprising given that they are both about the production and receipt of sound. Of course, it is complex language and communication that most distinguishes us from other animals, so anything that probes this part of the brain further is immensely important. On top of that, Steven Pinker makes the convincing point that music may be a by-product of evolved motor skills, emotional calls, simple pitch processing _etc._ - so an understanding of music would lead to an understanding of many other things at the same time.

My personal introduction was Robert Jourdain's _Music, the Brain and Ecstasy_ which was a great read that I need to pick up again soon, followed shortly after by Pinker's _How the Mind Works_, which is a fascinating book on the computational theory of mind (very difficult when I first read it!) with a chapter on art. I've had the amazon page to Levitin's book bookmarked for a while, as I want to read that too, and I've got _Musicophilia_ sitting on my shelf for when I'm not so busy!



delallan said:


> I took a quick glance at the listing of articles you've compiled (thank you!) I would very much like to read 'Toward a better understanding of the relation between music preference, listening behaviour, and personality' in Psychology of Music (2011). The abstract of this article suggests that there is a strong correlation between neuroticism and classical music as a preference. Interesting!


I've sent you a PM with a link.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I haven't updated the bibliography linked to in the OP as much as I'd have liked to (prior commitments and all that, with regular TC discussion naturally taking priority  ), though you can always ask me to dig around for citations on specific topics if you like.

Anyway, I've had this short video bookmarked for a while, and just watched it. Psyche Loui is a music neuroscientist that I'm familiar with, and in this video she summarises a study she was involved in that I blogged about quite some time ago. Mmsbls, you may find it particularly interesting, as it concerns our listening experiences with unfamiliar styles of music, and how we come to learn and appreciate the unfamiliar. In your quest to appreciate certain varieties of 20th century music, it would be best to listen to a variety of works in a single style rather than just repetitively try the big names (though you may have done that already). If that fails, you may be in need of a larger arcuate fasciculus.


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## Guest (May 12, 2012)

Polednice, do you know of any neuroscientists who define "music" explicitly?

Every study I've seen, including this short clip, assumes what I would consider a quite narrow definition of music. Assumes, but never (that I have ever seen) explicitly defines. It's almost as if none of them are confident they'll be able to draw their conclusions or make their points unless they avoid defining their ostensible subject. (There's some ambiguity about subject in this clip, too.)

Anyway, for just a short, factual note, it's true that if you halve a vibrating string, you'll get a certain result, called an octave. But, as Berlioz pointed out a hundred and fifty years ago or so, vibrating strings are not the only way to make sounds. There are tubes, as well, with or without extra holes, and any old thing that can be struck. The 1:2 ratio has been very seductive in talking about music, though, even though it's only with strings that you can halve the material and get an octave. Try halving a tube and see what you get! Or a block of wood.

In any event, I'd sure like to see how my brain would scan with some of these tests. I'll bet the results would be quite unexpected. To the researchers, anyway. Not to me.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I'm not sure it's necessary to provide a stringent definition of music, and nor does the lack of such a definition invalidate their observations. This is true in many, many different research fields where complex cultural phenomena have accepted boundaries in meaning without lines rigorously drawn.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

P.S. In human perception, the octave exists no matter how you derive it. Give the woman some credit - she had 9 minutes to talk, and did not claim that halving a string is the _only_ way to derive the octave. It was just an example to provide some context.


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## Guest (May 13, 2012)

I wasn't asking for stringent; I was asking for explicit.

Well, actually, I was asking you for some information. Are there any studies of music that supply an explicit definition of music?

The implicit definitions seem very lacking to me, and do definitely lead to what I would consider very questionable conclusions, yes. And that's something we could talk about. But the main intent of my original post was to find out if anyone has ever supplied an explicit definition of their ostensible subject. If anyone here would know that, yes or no, it would be you, eh?


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Polednice said:


> The last thread is useless because I couldn't edit the OP to update the references. On the recommendation of _science_, I have instead created a blog post which you can refer to, as I should be able to update it indefinitely.
> 
> This thread should still be a good centre for discussion regarding either specific papers or general issues.


Good. Did the papers suggest anything about folks who love noise? Anything abnormal?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

some guy said:


> I wasn't asking for stringent; I was asking for explicit.
> 
> Well, actually, I was asking you for some information. Are there any studies of music that supply an explicit definition of music?
> 
> The implicit definitions seem very lacking to me, and do definitely lead to what I would consider very questionable conclusions, yes. And that's something we could talk about. But the main intent of my original post was to find out if anyone has ever supplied an explicit definition of their ostensible subject. If anyone here would know that, yes or no, it would be you, eh?


The papers that I have read have had _neither_ an explicit or implicit definition of music, and I think your approach to the issue reveals a little prejudice. The fact is that while what these people are researching is _relevant_ to music, and they give talks to musicians and are read by people interested in music, they are _not_ saying that they are studying what music really is. They're studying _sound_. They use particular kinds of music in their research in order to represent the sound processes that they want to study, but no one is making any grand claims about what music is or what it should be, and they're not extrapolating from the kind of music they used in research to all other kinds of music. All they're doing is presenting the data they've found with regards to how the brain works, and if you find the _data_ dubious, that's fine - engage with the data and say where you think the flaws are. All this second-guessing of researchers' motives is really quite sad, and it leaves the impression that you simply don't like the look of the data but you don't know how to critique it.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I also think the request for a definition is a fundamentally disingenuous one. If I asked you to define music, what would you say? Whatever you said would be met with disapproval somewhere, so it's not fair to ask it of the researchers, hence why they consider themselves to be researching sound rather than some amorphous thing called "music", which is really a term of subjective assessment.

So let's get to the heart of the matter, have you ever read a music neuroscience paper that you've approved of? Do you think it's an across-the-board conspiracy to undermine certain kinds of music? Do you think every researcher is just ignorant of the _true_ definition of music? Or do you think science is fundamentally incapable of these kinds of explorations, regardless of the researchers' competence?


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## Guest (May 13, 2012)

You don't often get things wrong, but you've got this one wrong. So wrong it would take more effort than I have to set it right. And since you seem so determined that it not be set right, well, let's just leave it where it is, then.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

some guy said:


> You don't often get things wrong, but you've got this one wrong. So wrong it would take more effort than I have to set it right. And since you seem so determined that it not be set right, well, let's just leave it where it is, then.


Ha. How convenient. I doubt you'd have said anything worthwhile anyway. Saves me some time.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Now now, you two.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

The study of the neuroscience of music is in its infancy. Scientists are presumably trying to setup simple studies, get data, and make simple hypotheses to start the process of understanding. I would guess that although these scientists are interested in music in general, they recognize that they have to start with simple concepts and study them. Physicists were interested in all forms of matter, but they started with the motion of rigid bodies rather than fluid mechanics because the physics of rigid bodies was so vastly easier to study. With time they'll develop theories, test them, and move forward into new domains. Before you know it (say 500-1000 years) they'll have a pretty complete theory of brain response to all forms of music . 

The question of the best approach to learn to like music is still a bit of a mystery to me. I have tried various things with some success. Unfortunately, there's still the issue of how long some approach will take. It's hard to know when to try something new (i.e. have you given up too soon?).


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