The brain's favorite type of music | Mind & Brain - Science Daily

Summary: Musical preferences might be rooted in how humans learn.

---

People prefer songs with only a moderate amount of uncertainty and unpredictability, according to research recently published in JNeurosci.

Photo: courtesy of zirconicusso at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Scientists have long struggled to understand why activities of little apparent evolutionary value, like listening to music, bring so much pleasure. Previous studies have linked listening to and making predictions about music with activation in reward centers of the brain but have produced conflicting results on how musical predictions and surprises relate to pleasure.

Gold et al. employed a mathematical model to determine the predictability and uncertainty of musical fragments and then asked listeners to rate how much they liked the songs.
Read more...  
 
Journal Reference:
Benjamin P. Gold, Marcus T. Pearce, Ernest Mas-Herrero, Alain Dagher, Robert J. Zatorre. Predictability and uncertainty in the pleasure of music: a reward for learning? The Journal of Neuroscience, 2019; 0428-19 
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0428-19.2019 

Source: Science Daily