1. THIS LECTURE:
• Sensory transduction
• The case of sounds
• Early processing of sensory information
• The case of auditory localization
• How sensory information guides motion
• The case of auditory-guided head turns
• Higher-order processing of sensory information
• The case of surprise
• Emotions
• The case of music-induced chills

2. EMOTIONS
• Involve…
• physiological activation
• expressive behaviors
• conscious experience
• Happiness is related to faster heart rate (physiological activation), smiling
(expressive behavior) and the conscious experience of happiness (affect)

3. EMOTIONS ARE DIFFERENT FROM
COGNITIVE PROCESSES
• Memory
• Attention
• Language
• Problem solving
• Planning

4. WHAT ARE EMOTIONS?
• Hard to define:
• Emotions are states elicited by rewards and punishers (E.T. Rolls)
• Emotions are involved in the conscious (or unconscious) evaluation of
events (M.B. Arnolds)
• Emotions are pre-programmed set of coordinated bodily reactions with
adaptive values; affect is secondary (A. Damasio)

5. AFFECTIVE REACTIONS
CONSERVED ACROSS EVOLUTION
Berridge 2004

6. THE EMOTIONAL BRAIN
Pessoa Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 2008

7. MUSIC THAT EVOKES ‘CHILLS’…
Blood and Zatorre, PNAS 2001
Rachmaninov
3rd piano concerto
Barber
Adagio for strings
Heartrate

8. …AFFECTED BLOOD FLOW IN BRAIN REGIONS
IMPLICATED IN THE PROCESSING OF EMOTIONS
Blood and Zatorre, PNAS 2001

9. MUSIC AFFECTS ACTIVITY IN BRAIN REGIONS
IMPLICATED IN THE PROCESSING OF EMOTIONS
Koelsch, TICS 2010

10. SOUNDS, MUSIC, AND EMOTIONS
• How do sounds become music?
• How do sounds become speech?
• How do patches of light and dark become a picture of your
grandmother?
• How does music activate emotions?
• Or the taste and smell and texture of a madeleine evoke memories?
• …with a lot of important, fascinating details…

11. THIS LECTURE:
• Sensory transduction
• The case of sounds
• Early processing of sensory information
• The case of auditory localization
• How sensory information guides motion
• The case of auditory-guided head turns
• Higher-order processing of sensory information
• The case of surprise
• Emotions
• The case of music-induced chills

12. …with a lot of
important, fascinating
details…
THIS IS ALL PERFORMED BY NETWORKS OF
NEURONS, SYNAPSES, DENDRITIC
COMPUTATIONS, AND SO ON AND SO
FORTH…