{"id":594,"date":"2017-04-27T22:05:31","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T22:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healingmusicenterprises.com\/brain_blog\/?p=594"},"modified":"2017-04-27T22:06:51","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T22:06:51","slug":"brain-science-looks-musics-effects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healingmusicenterprises.com\/brain_blog\/2017\/04\/brain-science-looks-musics-effects\/","title":{"rendered":"Brain Science looks at Music’s Effects"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I’ve always been fascinated by brain science and how music affects our brains and why we humans respond so powerfully to music of all kinds! \u00a0Luckily for me, brain scientists are also really interested in this subject and new articles come out frequently that help to explain this phenomenon to us!<\/p>\n

Today I came across a very interesting article that expounded upon the 8 surprising ways that music affects our brains. \u00a0One of my biggest dreams is to find at least one way, and maybe a few more ways that we can use music to noticeably improve our quality of life! \u00a0Here’s what this lady says: \u00a0This fabulous article can be found at\u00a0https:\/\/blog.bufferapp.com\/music-and-the-brain. \u00a0Enjoy!<\/p>\n

1. Happy\/sad music affects how we see neutral faces:<\/h2>\n

We can usually pick if a piece of music is particularly happy or sad, but this isn\u2019t just a subjective idea that comes from how it makes us feel. In fact, our brains actually respond differently to happy and sad music.<\/p>\n

Even short pieces of happy or sad music can affect us. One study<\/a> showed that after hearing a short piece of music, participants were more likely to interpret a neutral expression as happy or sad, to match the tone of the music they heard<\/strong>. This also happened with other facial expressions, but was most notable for those that were close to neutral.<\/p>\n

Something else that\u2019s really interesting about how our emotions are affected by music<\/a>\u00a0is that there are two kind of emotions related to music: perceived<\/em> emotions and felt<\/em> emotions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This means that sometimes we can understand the emotions of a piece of music without actually feeling them<\/a>, which explains why some of us find listening to sad music enjoyable, rather than depressing.<\/p>\n

Unlike in real life situations, we don\u2019t feel any real threat or danger when listening to music, so we can perceive<\/em> the related emotions without truly feeling them\u2014almost like vicarious emotions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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2. Ambient noise can improve creativity<\/h2>\n

We all like to pump up the tunes when we\u2019re powering through our to-do lists, right? But when it comes to creative work, loud music may not be the best option.<\/p>\n

It turns out that\u00a0a\u00a0moderate noise level<\/a>\u00a0is the sweet spot for creativity<\/strong>. Even more than low noise levels, ambient noise apparently gets our creative juices flowing, and doesn\u2019t put us off the way high levels of noise do.<\/p>\n

The way this works is that\u00a0moderate noise levels increase processing difficulty which promotes abstract processing, leading to higher creativity<\/strong>. In other words, when we struggle (just enough) to process things as we normally would, we resort to more creative approaches.<\/p>\n

In high noise levels, however, our creative thinking is impaired because we\u2019re overwhelmed and struggle to process information efficiently.<\/p>\n

This is very similar to how temperature and lighting can affect our productivity<\/a>, where paradoxically a slightly more crowded place can be beneficial.<\/p>\n

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3. Our music choices can predict our personality<\/h2>\n

Enjoying this post?<\/b> Share it with your followers<\/a> at the exact right time with Buffer!<\/p>\n

Take this one with a grain of salt, because it\u2019s only been tested on young adults (that I know of), but it\u2019s still really interesting.<\/p>\n

In a study<\/a> of couples who spent time getting to know each other, looking at each other\u2019s top ten favorite songs actually provided fairly reliable predictions as to the listener\u2019s personality traits<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The study used five personality traits for the test: openness to experience, extraversion<\/a>, agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, some traits were more accurately predicted based on the person\u2019s listening habits than others. For instance, openness to experience, extraversion and emotional stability<\/a> were the easiest to guess correctly<\/strong>. Conscientiousness, on the other hand, wasn\u2019t obvious based on musical taste.<\/p>\n

Here is also a break-down of how the different genres correspond to our personality, according to a study conducted at Heriot-Watt University:<\/p>\n

\"music<\/a><\/p>\n

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To break it down, here is the connection they have found:<\/p>\n