A study published on April 4th in iScience unveils the impact of musical patterns on our physical sensations, ranging from quickening heartbeats to churning stomachs.
When chord progressions—sequences of three or more notes played simultaneously—deviate from what people anticipate, they seem to evoke intense sensations around the heart, while chords following easily predictable patterns feel like a punch to the stomach.
Music has a unique power to evoke emotions that words often fail to express. According to Tatsuya Daikoku, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Tokyo in Japan, "It's not just an auditory experience; it's also a bodily experience. When music plays, sometimes our bodies tremble, sometimes we feel warmth inside — these emotions are hard to put into words."
Researchers have demonstrated that music can elicit strong emotional responses, but pianist and composer Daikoku and his colleagues wanted to understand which parts of the body people feel these emotions in. To uncover this, they first analyzed 890 songs from the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart using analytical and statistical software.
The software assessed sequences of chords in songs for variations in levels of surprise and uncertainty. For instance, some sequences consisted of low surprise and low uncertainty chords transitioning to another set of low surprise and low uncertainty chords, while others involved a low surprise and low uncertainty chord transitioning to a low uncertainty but high surprise chord.
Based on this, the researchers created 92 music excerpts of four-chord sequences, each representing one of eight possible combinations of surprise and uncertainty. They then had 527 volunteers listen to different combinations of chord patterns while simultaneously observing silhouettes of human bodies online.
Volunteers were asked to click on areas of the human silhouette where they felt a bodily reaction within 10 seconds of hearing the music. Afterwards, they completed an online survey about their emotions upon hearing the chords.
The researchers found that the major differences in bodily sensations correlated with changes occurring in the fourth chord when the preceding three chords followed an easily predictable pattern. If the fourth chord adhered to the expected pattern, people felt sensations in their abdomen, but if it deviated from the expected pattern, sensations were felt around the heart area.
Emotionally, participants exhibited greater calmness, relaxation, satisfaction, nostalgia, and empathy when chord progressions followed predictable patterns. When the first three chords were predictable and the fourth chord was not surprising but relatively unpredictable compared to other chord configurations, they typically felt less embarrassment or anxiety.
Daikoku stated that these findings "reveal how music touches not only our ears but also our bodies and minds." He hopes that this understanding will one day lead to better interventions for mental health.
For more information, see the related paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.109498
