This document discusses research on the neurological basis for how music elicits emotional responses. It describes how music recognition activates brain regions involved in emotional processing like the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex. Studies using fMRI and ERP technologies found that processing musical syntax activates similar brain regions as language like Broca's area. This suggests music shares integrative properties with language and both tap into our innate capacity for emotional expression and communication.

1. THE NEUROSCIENCE OF MUSIC RECOGNITION: MUSIC’S CONNECTION WITH
LANGUAGE AND ITS CAPACITY TO CAPTURE EMOTIONAL FEELING
Chris Roberts
MUH 277
University of Maine at Farmington
Dr. Steve Pane
6/15/15

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The Neuroscience of Music Recognition: Music’s Connection with Language and its
Capacity to Capture Emotional Feeling
As individuals communicate and collaborate with others in societies, or local
communities, having the knowledge of what matters to express oneself and ones’
personal identity becomes of vital importance. The ability to express and relate with
other people in our surrounding area has come about in the past as an evolutionary
skill. As we have evolved into modern day civilians, the skill of expression has also
evolved from being a mechanism that revolves around survival to a skill that allows
emotion to be created and shared. As members of the community continue to use
the emotion of fear for both survival and recreation, the emotion that began with
our ancestors has now expanded due to human collaboration and industrial growth.
As humans evolved from our Australopithecus robustus ancestors towards our
modern day homo sapius form, our emotional database has evolved to present a
more conscious and unconscious ability to capture and feel emotions such as love,
joy and sadness as we began to have the ability to live a life that had aspects that did
not revolve around constant fear of survival.
Prior to going into the details of neuroscience, and more specifically the
aspect of the biological feeling of emotion, let us explore the definition of emotion
and the challenge that comes with simplifying such an abstruse concept. In their
well-known researched-based book Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance,
Siu-Lan Tan, Peter Pfordresher and Rom Harre define emotion as being closely
linked with the similar biological and psychodynamic aspects of an individual’s
feelings and moods. Although feelings and moods link closely with the ideals of

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emotion, it is also mentioned that the word emotion has a very independent
definition. In this piece of literature, first published in 2010, emotions are thought to
include feelings (a subjective experience, e.g., sorrow), but also to involve appraisals
of a situation (e.g., death of a family member), to be focused on an object (family
member), and to be associated with the physical expression of emotion(s). This
definition is written in a manner that lets readers spark the argument that the
emotional response that comes with music recognition revolves around the ability
to spark a connection that brings out a certain emotional response. In 2008, another
researcher by the name of Koneccni worked with this aspect of emotion and music.
This work states that music elicits powerful psychological feelings that gravitate
towards the ideals of emotion when associated with extra musical thoughts or
occurrences (Koneccni 2008). The work of Koneccni is an example of the past
research that was cited and looked at by Siu-Lan Tan, Peter Pfordresher and Rom
Harre prior to their publication in 2010.
The biological model of neuroscience revolves around the understanding of
how these emotional responses result from both the conscious connection
individuals make with past and present parts of their lives and the unconscious
creation of emotion that sparks through association. Researchers as far back as
1959, such as Deryck Cooke, have stated that music is a language that is capable of
expressing certain definite things. An important focus becomes how the mind and
corresponding individual perceive and react. One example of how individuals may
differ in their personal thoughts and responses towards pieces of music is that of
enjoyment and/or overall judgment. Neurologically the brain has a different

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response to music depending on how an individual perceives it. These responses
impact very important portions of the brain’s construction that deal with aspects of
reward and fear.
For instance, evidence from an fMRI study suggests that consonant
musical intervals (which are pleasant and harmonious to the ear)
stimulate a region of the orbitofrontal cortex…which is associated
with reward and reinforcement (Blood, Zatorre, Bermudez, & Evans,
1999; see also Mitterschiffthaler, Fu, Dalton, Andrew, and Williams,
2007 for a similar result with longer musical excerpts). By contrast,
dissonant intervals increase activity in the parahippocampal gyrus, a
region that has intricate connections to the amygdala, the brain’s
‘warning center.’ Further evidence of the role of the amygdala as a
warning center extending to music comes from a study showing that
removal of the amygdala (to prevent seizure) leads to a reduced
ability to recognize ‘scary’ music (Tan, Pfordresher & Harre 2010)
This research is groundbreaking due to the fact that it presents the argument that
neuroscience has a form of an identity, or perspective. This work shows that music
does not always have a definite set effect on the brain, but contrarily results from
the conscious and/or unconscious result of the individuals' reflection of the tune. As
music has the ability to spark neurological activity within the brain, it also becomes
clear that music and situational-emotional responses triggered by the amygdala are
connected. As the brain responds to unpleasant music, the amygdala is found to
present neurological activity as that of a dangerous situation. Danger, a result of

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fear, is the emotional response of the individual. These situational responses can be
seen as a result of individual identity and personal cognitive thought. Through
collaborative interaction with others and exposure to differing factors that may
trigger a reaction from the amygdala, the level of neurological activity that is found
in the fight/flight principle of the human mind begins to be altered by the
experience of the individual. This alteration makes the response not only situational,
but also personal due to the individuality. As researchers have found this activity to
be present within the brain, there is another strong reasoning for the belief in this
connection that we are exploring due to how the activity is not present with the
removal of this region of the brain.
This past research and information being discussed introduces the idea of
integration. This idea was discussed in the piece of research-based literature above,
and brings forth the addition of language to the conversation of understanding
neurological activity. Research has presented evidence of this idea of integration, or
the idea that similar brain regions allow us to communicate with either language or
music. Due to the ways in which the brain reacts, one can argue that music has a
similar construction to that of language. One researcher looked into this and did
psychological research with two patients with lesions, which deficits an individuals’
ability to process aspects of music. The topic of question being explored was if an
inability to process characteristics of music would affect the ability to sight and
comprehend “music-like” aspects of language. It was found that one of these
patients was unable to discriminate sentences, based on intonation. This choice of
wording refers to the pattern of rising and falling of pitch that can be distinguished

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in language. Mankind has become able to distinguish from the rising pitch of a
question and the falling pitch of the corresponding answer (Patel, Perez, Tramo, &
Labreque 1998).
As this similarity between music recognition and language comprehension is
explored, it is important to look at where the brain is triggered and the level of
neurological activity that occurs. Beginning with the idea of location within the
brain, past research introduces what brain regions have been found to commonly
home activity when recognizing and working with language. As the research being
explored presents areas of neurological activity, the comparison, and overall
similarities that come with the same active recognition and work with music is
analyzed to look for similar types of responses at the neurological level of the
human mind.
Various findings from studies using fMRI show brain activation in the
vicinity of Broca’s area (ventral part of the left frontal lobe) – long
considered the locus of speech production. For instance, the presence
of unexpected chords in music stimulates activity in Broca’s area
(Koelsch, Gunter, Cramon, Zysset, Lohmann, & Frederici,
2002)…These findings support a newer view of Broca’s area and
surrounding regions as being responsible for processing syntax, rules
for ordering sequences in ways that are coherent to the perceiver,
regardless of whether the rules obtain for musical or linguistic
sequences (Tan, Pfordresher & Harre 2010).

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As research has been done on this area of the brain, there is a trend towards seeing
the Broca’s region of the brain to revolve around processing ordering sequences
rather then the locus of speech production mentioned earlier in the block quotation.
Tools such as fMRIs let psychologists and researchers find out more about the link
that music has with other topics of neurological activity.
The intensity of brain activity is something else that has been found to have
reasoning behind music’s connection with other parts of modern living. As one is
able to use fMRIs to find data on neurological activity, it is also possible to do the
same with ERP technology. This technology stands for Event Related Potential, and
records raw electrical activity within the brain known as EEG data. Researchers
used this method to find data for neurological responses to both language and
music. The research done with language focused on the word cry unexpectedly put
into a sentence. The unexpected word choice triggers a level of brain activity that
was measured at 400 ms on the EEG response. This data can be conclusive, but
presents a larger finding when compared against an aspect of musical recognition.
When exposed to a pitch that is out of key, and not expected by the listener, there is
a similar EEG neurological response. Although the activity found is similar, the level
of intensity was 600 ms rather than the 400 ms found with language. As individuals
have looked into these findings of neuroscience, they have started to follow the
trend of seeing language as a syntactic science rather than a semantic topic. This
sees the neurological activity activated by language as a result of grammatical
reasoning rather than that of both word choice and meaning. This is highlighted in
the 1983 work of Lerdahl and Jackendoff when they stated that notes in music do

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not refer to actions and events in the outside world but the structure of music does
follow rules that can be considered grammatical.
After understanding the activity and neuroscience that goes on in the brain
as a result of music, it is appropriate to now focus back towards emotion. As the past
few pages have connected the ideas of language and music, both pieces were spoken
about as ways in which to express emotion. As mentioned earlier, emotion can be
found to be a result of conscious and unconscious neurological thought and brain
region activity. As music and language are used to express current emotion, it can
also capture emotion found in the past. This is where we turn to the work of the well
renowned Guilaume Dufay, a famous musical composer of the 1400s in Italy. Dufay
is well known for his piece Nuper Rosarum Flores, which revolves around the
dedication and beauty of the Florence cathedral. This composition is important and
is talked about within this paper due to how it is a piece of music that presents
examples of all the arguments mentioned throughout this paper, such as music
having religious significance and a grammatical connection to language.
This connection between the culture of Italy and the neuroscience of the
mind will best be understood with an introduction of Dufay and his importance to
the past and present of Italy in modern day. A well-known composition of Dufay’s
was his dedication to the architecture that made up the Duomo residing in Florence,
Italy. The architect was a man by the name of Brunelleschi, who won a competition
announced on the nineteenth of August in 1419. Brunelleschi was awarded two
hundred gold Florence (the currency during the time period), and used a ring and
rib support system of two shells in his creation to let workers be able to sit on the

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first shell while constructing the second. The Duomo, besides a few modifications to
pieces of rotted wood, is still steady today. Once this historical masterpiece was
complete, a new mission was announced to create a piece of music for the building’s
dedication. This challenge was accepted by Dufay and completed on March twenty-
fifth in 1436.
Thanks to wool industry, the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, previously
known as the Duomo di Firenze was constructed and became one of the largest
churches in the world. The church used a large sum of timber from the forest and
marble that had to be transported into the city. Aspects of the cathedral, such as the
wealth and power presented by the buildings’ marble and the gothic style that was
used by the building’s designer Arnolfo di Cambio, started to give the building an
identity. Through its construction, the building’s identity became a very important
part of the Florence community. The experience of the cathedral’s style, art,
architecture, religious background, and historical significance now embodies a sum
of emotion that Dufay sought to capture in his piece for the dedication mentioned
prior.
Although the history is important, let us revert back to the focal aspect of the
music accompanying the magnificent architecture. As Dufay accepted this challenge
explained above, he chose to compose a piece that captured the emotion behind the
importance that the building has to the city. His piece was constructed in a manner
that followed the same mathematical flow of the building, and used the art of
measure and tempo to create an emotional response while at the same time
illustrating the rediscovered ability to identify the world through scientific

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achievement. While justifying the growth that has resulted from the past era of the
Middle Ages, there was a musical narrative that corresponded with the ideals of a
complex time period such as the renaissance. By creating a piece of music that
embodied aspects of both counterpoint and polyphony at different portions of the
piece to trigger a reaction from the audience, Dufay’s work became a symbolic piece
of art.
As Dufay composed Nuper Rosarum Flores he chose to present the ratios of
the music in a way that has religious significance. This religious aspect of the piece is
an example of two different topics being spoken about in this paper. The first deals
with the ability for music to capture historical significance. As the music follows
ratios that mirror the Temple of Solomon from the Bible, the piece has a significance
to the religious past of the Florence individuals. The second argument that comes
into play by the ratios of Nuper Rosarum Flores focuses on the connection that music
has with language. As the music follows a specific set ratio, the composer creates a
manner of flow and order that must be followed. This creation of musical order, and
specific rule, mirrors the grammatical structure of language. As the composition
presents counterpart and polyphony to create examples of texture, the piece is also
composed in a manner that has religious significance and linguistic connection.
This piece captured the emotional aspects of the renaissance era, and
followed the grammatical aspects presented by the mathematical art of the music’s
flow. Dufay used an artistic language to capture an emotion that is perceived by both
past and present individual’s neurological thought. It is best said in Psychology of
Music: From Sound to Significance;

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Just as languages communicate common ideas with different words
and syntax, so does music communicate similar ideas through
different tonal and rhythmic structures. The profound significance of
music and the immense joy that it has given people in all times and
places is almost certainly the result of the power of music to reveal
the intricacies and depths of human life (Tan, Pfordresher & Harre
2010).
After researching this ideal, and reviewing an event in history that symbolizes it, it
becomes evident that the human mind is constructed to have neurological
responses that establish musical recognition as similar to linguistic-grammatical
understanding. Both can be seen as tools to construct and capture cultures of time
periods found in both the past and present day. Ultimately, it may be that music
binds humanity together more effectively than does language, while at the same
time acting as a vehicle for cultural diversity just like language does (Tan,
Pfordresher & Harre 2010).
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pleasant and unpleasant music correlate with activity in paralimbic brain
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