Music can affect human physical condition: Explanation from scientists
How music affects human physical state (photo: Freepik)
Scientists have discovered how music affects the human physical state. They have found musical patterns that make the heart beat faster and also cause reactions in the abdomen, according to the New Scientist material.
It was already known that music can evoke strong emotional reactions. But pianist and composer Tatsuya Daikoku of the University of Tokyo in Japan and his colleagues aimed to determine where people feel these emotions in their bodies.
To discover this, they first used analytical and statistical software to separate 890 songs from the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The software evaluated the sequence of chords in the songs as different variations of high or low levels of surprise and uncertainty.
Researchers created 92 musical segments from four chords, each representing one of the eight possible combinations of surprise and uncertainty. They then asked 527 volunteers to listen to various sets of all eight of these chords while observing an online silhouette of the human body.
What the results showed
The researchers found that when the first three chords follow an easily predictable pattern, the main differences in body sensations have a lot to do with what happens on the fourth chord. If this fourth chord followed the expected pattern, people felt it in their abdomen, but if it deviated from the expected pattern, they felt it near the heart.
In terms of emotions, participants reported greater feelings of calm, relief, satisfaction, nostalgia, and compassion when the chords followed the predicted pattern.
When the first three chords were predictable and the fourth was not unexpected, even if it was relatively difficult to predict, they tended to feel less embarrassed or anxious compared to other chord arrangements.
The findings “shed light on how music doesn’t just touch our ears, but also our bodies and hearts. Music has the power to elicit these strong embodied emotions, guiding us to understand our inner emotional landscape in ways that words cannot," says Daikoku.
Also, read about a new study that revealed two unexpected properties of chocolate.
Previously, we wrote about scientists discovering that some people perceive the world faster than others.
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