Why Do Humans Like Music?
- erudite .
- Apr 28, 2022
- 3 min read
By Anoushka Ghosh
Sound is a rather integral part of our lives as human beings. Throughout evolution, we would depend upon our sense of hearing to warn us of any nearby predators or alert us of possible prey. Yet, it doesn’t seem that something like music would actually play any sort of important role in our lives. Although this seems to be the case, music remains an important factor in the majority of our lives. In fact, music is being listened to as this article is written. Many of us today are able to enjoy music whenever and wherever. However, why do we enjoy music? What is the reason behind this phenomenon of feeling emotions when we’re listening to music?
In case it is not known, music is a pattern. When we play music, we are constantly anticipating the different sequences of beats. Interestingly, that is the reason why we don’t like unfamiliar music, because we aren’t able to predict or understand its pattern. So, we get bored. Even still, we are able to enjoy specific types of music, which would result in our brain releasing dopamine that makes us happy. A study published in Nature Neuroscience found that dopamine release is the strongest when the music itself has reached its emotional peak and this causes a person to have the “chills,” which is essentially the tingle that you feel down your spine. Therefore, we now understand how we like music, but we don’t really know why it must be.
Similar to other activities that are essential to survival (e.g. sex and eating), we also release dopamine while listening to music. The whole reason we have this release of dopamine is to encourage us to commit to these acts. Why is it so that we have the same release of dopamine while listening to music? In reality, this is a rather unknown reason for this whole phenomenon. Although, there have been many theories as to why this may be the case. According to philosopher and composer Leonard Meyer, emotion arises when we are unable to satisfy our desire, which eventually would lead to frustration or anger. Yet, once we fulfill our needs, it would be nothing but happiness. Hence, the emotion in music is what we expect to feel - a desire to be fulfilled. So, Meyer proposes that when we predict the sonic patterns and regularities in the music pattern, our brain rewards us with a surge of dopamine. It’s as if the dopamine rush is like a good grade after a difficult test.
However, researchers at McGill University in Canada conducted a study that showed a consistent response to listening to music among eight subjects. The study itself involved PET (positron emission tomography) and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) techniques to monitor the brain as music is being listened to. The researchers stumbled upon an interesting discovery that involved dopamine being released during emotional arousal while listening to music. The fMRI scan showed a difference between time and structures involved. When the climax of emotional arousal was expected, the caudate nucleus was alive and active. As the peak was reached, the nucleus accumbens were involved. So, what could this possibly mean? Well, the answer is interesting enough for you to know!
It means we have a dopamine rush whenever we anticipate and experience a pleasurable response to listening to music. This would suggest that an abstract reward, such as music, can cause a dopamine rush as opposed to the usual concrete rewards like eating and sleeping. We’ve come to an understanding that a neural network is shared for both abstract and concrete rewards, causing them to have similar results as the dopamine rush. Therefore, it could be proposed that music is an intangible reward that satisfies us with a surge of dopamine. Its significance in our lives is as important as eating and sleeping.
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