The same brain chemicals that are responsible for our enjoyment of recreational drugs, sex, and food are also involved in the experience of getting pleasure from listening to music. In order to find out more about the brain’s pleasure circuits’ involvement in music perception, researchers blocked the release of natural opioids in the participants’ brains […]
Tag: music
Music can transcend culture
Montreal hipsters’ and Congolese pygmy tribe members react to some elements of music in the same way, according to a new study. Forty Pygmies and 40 Canadians listened in pairs to 19 music excerpts (eight Pygmy and 11 Western instrumental excerpts) and were asked to rate the songs (arousing or calming, positive or negative.) Researchers found […]
Bass beats in the brain
A new study helps explain why, in musical cultures from around the world, rhythm is usually played on low-voiced instruments while pitch is played on high-voiced ones. It turns out that when two sounds are played together, the human brain perceives timing differences in low-pitched sounds more easily than those in high-pitched sounds. In the […]
