Music on the Mind

Maika ArroyoChristopher Santana

Emotions: How does music affect them?

What is Emotion?• An emotion is complex.

When most people think of emotions, they think of their feelings. But the feeling component is only an aspect of emotion; Emotions also include a physiological response(heart rate increase, sweating, muscle tension, etc.) brain activity, thoughts, expressions, and other elements.

• Emotions are reactions to external or internal events and last over a few seconds, minutes, or hours.

• There have been several attempts at defining emotion:

• 1. William James (1884)- said that emotion was our feeling of bodily changes when ‘the bodily changes follow directly perception of the exciting fact’.

• 2. Plutchik (1982)- “Emotion is an inferred complex sequence of reactions to a stimulus including cognitive evaluations, subjective changes, autonomic and neural arousal, impulses to action, and behavior designed to have an effect upon the stimulus that initiated the complex sequence”

• 3. Keltner & Shiota (2003)- “An emotion is a universal, functional reaction to an external stimulus event, temporally integrating physiological, cognitive, phenomenological, and behavioral channels to facilitate a fitness-enhancing, environment-shaping response to the current situation.”

• They all agree on the sense that emotions are and have been useful in our evolutionary process. Also they agree that every emotion is a reaction to a stimuli. But it has to be external, that is how an emotion is different from a drive. So in conclusion its more beneficial to describe what an emotion should be and make prescriptive judgments. But for it to be considered an emotion it must have the following behavioral components: cognition, feeling, physiological changes, and behavior.

• Direct our attention

• Enhance our memory and how we encode and consolidate different pieces of information.

• Organize our behavior and our orientation towards other people.

• Drive and direct social approach or even social avoidance.

• Develop moral and ethical behavior.

• Adaptive or dysregulated

Why do we have emotions?

The Anatomy of Emotion

Emotion and the brain• When people have

different emotions, it manifests in the brain circuitry. And specifically, different functional areas.

• But the focus over the past several decades has been on the emotion-related brain circuitry in the limbic system which is really a distributed set of brain nodes or brain regions that function together to have have the experience of emotions, and maybe even to generate emotion experience.

• And to detect what’s personally salient and emotionally significant for us. So this is happening in a distributed brain system.

• The amygdala is a very important node within the limbic system for emotions. It is located in the temporal lobe, and it receives input representing vision, hearing, other senses, and pain, so it is in a position to associate various stimuli with outcomes that follow them.

• The limbic system really is made up of multiple brain areas, including the amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and other brain regions. And even other paralimbic regions like the orbital frontal cortex.

• Structure important for emotional processed are located in the brain stem and neocortex as well as in between.

How to measure emotion• Lesion method- which basically is, when

you cut out a piece of the brain and see if the behavior of the person changes or goes away.

• Electoencephalography Measures- which relies on the electrical charge that neurons generate when they depolarize. Researchers place electrodes on the participants head and measure the electrical potential. This technique allows researchers to detect neural activation happening less than a second after a stimuli.

• Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging(fMRI)- which is, basically a snapshot of the brain in action. It measures changes in blood oxygen levels in the brain as a way of assessing where neurons have been recently active.

• subjective emotion experience- when a person is exposed to different emotions through film clips.

• looking at facial expressions

Emotion Regulation

• It consists of strategies we use to control which emotions we have, when we have them, and how strongly we experience and express them.

• The prefrontal cortex allows us to take perspective. To think, to analyze, to use language. All in the service of emotion regulation.

Stages of Emotion Regulation

• 1. Pre-conscious

• 2. Immediate attention shift

• 3. Emotion Appraisal

• 4. Cognitive Reappraisal

• 5. Meta-Cognitive Processing

Theories of Emotion

James-Lange Theory

• This theory states that emotions are the labels we give to the way the body reacts to certain situations.

Cannon-Bard Theory

• Emotional cognitions and feelings are causally independent of physiological arousal and behavior, even though these aspects all occur at the same time.

Schachter-Singer Theory

• The physiological arousal that often accompanies emotion is essential for determining how strong the emotional feeling will be, but it does not identify the emotion.

Music on the mind

Definition/Concept

• An art or sound in time that expresses ideas, emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony and color

• The tones or sounds employed, occurring in either single line (melody) or multiply lines (harmony)

Pitch/Tone

• Pitch refers to the actual value of the note the instrument or voice is making

• Ex: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So La, Si, Do...

• Tone is the quality or timbre of the sound.

• Ex: full, piercing, faint, screeching, soothing, vibrato

Power of Rhythm

• Rhythm: pattern measure of time

• Stressed or unstressed beats enhance or thwart our perception on seeing things

• All our systems work under the influence of rhythm

• Organizes billions of electrical impulses = clear mental pictures

• Controls the way message is sent along the neurological system; controls perception of things

• Rhythm can change our mental pictures or way of perceiving things

• "Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it even if we so desired" (Boethius cited by Storr).

MUSIC THERAPY

What is it?

• a clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program

When was it first used?• Ancient societies like

China, Egypt, Greece, Rome used it as healing medium

• USA - late 18th century during WWI & II

• VA hospital to address traumatic war injuries

• Alleviating pain perception

Physiological Effects• Responses to music are easily

detected in the human body

• Intensity of volume affects both sides greatly

• Loud, Fast beats of music can lead to heighten senses, stress, tension, anxiety, irate, even be able to numb out other senses

• Soft, Slow beats reduce stress levels, breathing rate, blood pressure, alleviate pain

• Synchronize brain waves & aid in neural patterns such as walking, running, etc..

• Improves motor coordination

Psychological Effects• Functions simultaneously with the

physical effects

• Recall a past event, pleasant or heart-breaking

• Affect mood, perception of activities,events

• Improves verbal memory and concentration/ attention

• Causes distraction from pain or need to take pills

• Reduce headaches/migraines intensity, duration

• Enhance learning/intelligence because constant interaction between both hemispheres

• Reduces negative emotions

Overall Benefits

• Promotes Wellness

• Stress Management

• Alleviate Pain

• Express Feelings

• Enhance Memory

• Improve Communication

• Promote Physical Rehabilitation

Autism and Music

• Excellent way of interacting with kids with cognitive/emotional challenges and improve their function ability

• Build certain skills, lower anxiety levels, even develop some language

• Social skills, sensory issues, perceptual/motor skills, self-determination

• Music seen as a natural reinforcer for desired responses; motivates/engages child

• Simple songs to create a two-way communication

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFLJJlOCVsw

Music Therapy at Work #1

Memory and Music

• Mental system that receives, stores, organizes, alters and recovers information from sensory input

• Music has been proven to be one of the factors that stimulate different areas of the brain at once

• Enhances memory of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients

• Cause the patient to recall certain events in which a specific song was playing, activating long-term memory

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKDXuCE7LeQ&feature=share

Music Therapy at Work #2

I-Dosing

Digital Drug

• Attempt to achieve perceived “high” from listening to specially-engineered music

• Binaural Beats - rhythmic humming sounds that are created by playing 2 simple tones that cause the brain to activate a specific physical stimuli

• Specific brainwaves alter certain glands to produce desired hormones

• Boost mood, increase happiness, visualization craze

• Capable of reducing learning time / sleeping needs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-02KbqisDQ8&feature=related

Legal or Illegal?

Future of Music?

• Pros: There is an increase of talented young kids in society today

• Music at an early age is an excellent asset for further development

• Music will forever move our emotions

• Cons: There is a decline in music programs in schools

• Music is being decomposed by technology

• It is being infested with vulgar language and explicit messages to society

BibliographyAmerican Music Therapy Association | American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) . (n.d.). American Music Therapy Association | American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) . Retrieved April 24, 2012, from http://www.musictherapy.org/

•Beckerman, . J. (n.d.). Healing the brain through music « Psychology in the News. Psychology in the News. Retrieved April 24, 2012, from http://intro2psych.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/healing-the-brain-through-music/

• DeCHILLO, S. (n.d.). Music Therapy Helps the Dying - NYTimes.com. NY Times Advertisement. Retrieved April 24, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/nyregion/music-therapy-helps-the-dying.html

• I-dosing: How teenagers are getting 'digitally high' from music they download from internet | Mail Online. (n.d.). Home | Mail Online. Retrieved April 24, 2012, from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1296282/I-dosing-How-teenagers-getting-digitally-high-music-download-internet.html

•Surprising Effects Of Music. (n.d.). eMedExpert.com - Reliable Information on Prescription Drugs. Retrieved April 24, 2012, from http://www.emedexpert.com/tips/music.shtml

• The Physiological Effects of Music - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com. (n.d.). Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com. Retrieved April 24, 2012, from http://voices.yahoo.com/the-physiological-effects-music-2483533.html?cat=5