Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music (2016)

academic.oup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 36 posts

Re: Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music (2016)

#21

Post by usaname »

hudon wrote: post #5
1_player wrote: post #3

It's fascinating that music elicits strong effects on some people, and none whatsoever to others. When I hear someone say "I don't much care about music" it's so hard to understand, as personally I feel it's a direct plug to emotions like none other. I regularly experience frissons when listening to an interesting piece - I've always thought everybody did! - and it can change my mood dramatically and instantly. I alw…

> has no survival reason? This is going to sound crazy but maybe it does have a survival reason. In societies where music is enjoyed (all major societies today), music has the capacity to not only gather people but also have them experience a shared emotion or thought. Not only that, but music has the capacity to carry a story through time, from generation to generation, and thus the capacity to carry the morals of t…

The semi-nomadic indigenous Australian's used 'song lines' where they would start singing at a landmark continuing at a certain heading and the pacing such that the narrative of the song would tell them about the local resources and other relevant info.c my 2c

Re: Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music (2016)

#22

Post by deltron3030 »

hudon wrote: post #5
1_player wrote: post #3

It's fascinating that music elicits strong effects on some people, and none whatsoever to others. When I hear someone say "I don't much care about music" it's so hard to understand, as personally I feel it's a direct plug to emotions like none other. I regularly experience frissons when listening to an interesting piece - I've always thought everybody did! - and it can change my mood dramatically and instantly. I alw…

> has no survival reason? This is going to sound crazy but maybe it does have a survival reason. In societies where music is enjoyed (all major societies today), music has the capacity to not only gather people but also have them experience a shared emotion or thought. Not only that, but music has the capacity to carry a story through time, from generation to generation, and thus the capacity to carry the morals of t…

Just visit a football (soccer) game and join the local fan block and "Ultras" of a team. It's really powerful if everybody around you is chanting or into some kind of choreography.

Re: Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music (2016)

#23

Post by lukas099 »

1_player wrote: post #3

It's fascinating that music elicits strong effects on some people, and none whatsoever to others. When I hear someone say "I don't much care about music" it's so hard to understand, as personally I feel it's a direct plug to emotions like none other. I regularly experience frissons when listening to an interesting piece - I've always thought everybody did! - and it can change my mood dramatically and instantly. I alw…

"no clear value for survival"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection

Re: Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music (2016)

#24

Post by stinos »

1_player wrote: post #8
hudon wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has no survival reason? This is going to sound crazy but maybe it does have a survival reason. In societies where music is enjoyed (all major societies today), music has the capacity to not only gather people but also have them experience a shared emotion or thought. Not only that, but music has the capacity to carry a story through time, from generation to generation, and thus the capacity to carry the morals of t…

Definitely makes sense. I imagine a prehistoric tribe dancing in trance around the fire, playing with improvised instruments. The human experience is so "lonely" - we all are separate entities in desperate need to belong - and sharing a common experience and emotion definitely bonds people. It would help glue a tribe together, which is decidedly a survival advantage. And the poor fella who didn't join in because he d…

I imagine a prehistoric tribe dancing in trance around the fire

This is basically how I, and others, tend to feel when attending goa/acidcore/dnb (that one to a lesser extent though) parties. All together in front of the speakers, just us and the music, then the sun coming up. Pure bless. And that's even without drugs, or at least not a lot, go imagine what it's like with certain substances :P.

I tried hard, but this doesn't work for me at all with more popular/known genres, presumably both because of music and audience, too much people just chatting instead of dancing etc, and also never got that connection with metal etc. Would love to see research on that.

Re: Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music (2016)

#25

Post by lukas099 »

lukas099 wrote: post #23
1_player wrote: post #3

It's fascinating that music elicits strong effects on some people, and none whatsoever to others. When I hear someone say "I don't much care about music" it's so hard to understand, as personally I feel it's a direct plug to emotions like none other. I regularly experience frissons when listening to an interesting piece - I've always thought everybody did! - and it can change my mood dramatically and instantly. I alw…

"no clear value for survival" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection

Also, chanting, dancing, etc. could be a strong signal of social cohesion, making predators and other threats think twice about attacking.

Look at the "haka" of the Māori and tell me you wouldn't be scared facing that.

Re: Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music (2016)

#26

Post by JoshMnem »

lukas099 wrote: post #23
1_player wrote: post #3

It's fascinating that music elicits strong effects on some people, and none whatsoever to others. When I hear someone say "I don't much care about music" it's so hard to understand, as personally I feel it's a direct plug to emotions like none other. I regularly experience frissons when listening to an interesting piece - I've always thought everybody did! - and it can change my mood dramatically and instantly. I alw…

"no clear value for survival" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection

> "Humans uniquely appreciate aesthetics, experiencing pleasurable responses to complex stimuli that confer no clear intrinsic value for survival."

It seems to me like music has a clear value for survival. Music is a type of cultural transmission (memory technique), and humans do sexually select for musical ability (ask a musician).[1] Groups that sexually selected for the ability to transmit oral knowledge through generations (via memorization, including things like meter, rhythms, melody, and rhyming) probably had a greater chance of survival. Before writing, people stored their cultures' encyclopedias in their minds, which often involved music in some way.[2] Cultures also organize around music, people follow the ideas of musicians, etc. Napoleon made some interesting comments about the active use of music in leadership and group behavior.[3] A prehistoric human with an ability to organize groups through music probably had a higher survival/reproduction rate in general, or at least benefited the group through organizational techniques.

[1] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305735613482025

[2] https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/general-books/pop...

[3] "Of all the fine arts, music is the one which has the most influence on the emotions, and it is this influence which the legislator must encourage most warmly. A piece of "moral" music, one by the hand of a master, cannot fail to touch the heart and has much more influence than a good, "moral" piece of writing, which moves the mind but has no effect on our behaviour."

Re: Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music (2016)

#27

Post by pishpash »

Darthy wrote: post #4
1_player wrote: post #3

It's fascinating that music elicits strong effects on some people, and none whatsoever to others. When I hear someone say "I don't much care about music" it's so hard to understand, as personally I feel it's a direct plug to emotions like none other. I regularly experience frissons when listening to an interesting piece - I've always thought everybody did! - and it can change my mood dramatically and instantly. I alw…

Well, all art is basically things with no clear value for survival. You could even say that's the definition of it :-)

Art/music is the native language of emotive content, just as logic/mathematics is the native language of rational content. Notice the latter came much later and now we tend to forget how important the former was for communication in a human society before rational thought was codified.

Re: Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music (2016)

#28

Post by nimrod0 »

JoshMnem wrote: post #26
lukas099 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"no clear value for survival" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection

> "Humans uniquely appreciate aesthetics, experiencing pleasurable responses to complex stimuli that confer no clear intrinsic value for survival." It seems to me like music has a clear value for survival. Music is a type of cultural transmission (memory technique), and humans do sexually select for musical ability (ask a musician).[1] Groups that sexually selected for the ability to transmit oral knowledge through g…

Way before Napoleon, during the Zhou Dynasty of China, Confucius was already teaching his minister-aspiring students about the role of music in governing, owing to it being a device to actualize harmonious behavior among the vassals and the people as practiced for a thousand years then and codified in the lost Book of Harmony.

https://ctext.org/liji/yue-ji/ens

Re: Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music (2016)

#29

Post by pishpash »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #11
osense wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that art is limited to things which have no clear value for survival. People have decorated every-day objects in their surroundings for millennia. Survival-themed video games have an innate attractiveness to many of us. Some even seek out to make their homes as plain & functional as possible and call it an art movement — minimalism.

Imagine an art-free world. Everything would be as functional and utilitarian as possible, with zero design and decoration. Our world looks and sounds nothing like that. We put an incredible amount of effort into aesthetics. Virtually nothing is 100% utilitarian. Shape, colour, texture, and sound are all considered essential. None of that has direct survival value, but it clearly has such deep emotional benefits that…

In fact we reject purely utilitarian landscapes as, variously, alien, cold, robotic, or dystopic.

More specific to music, it clearly has a unique value even within art. Multiple directors have said something to the effect that a movie doesn't work until the music is put in.

Re: Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music (2016)

#30

Post by WalterSear »

Darthy wrote: post #4
1_player wrote: post #3

It's fascinating that music elicits strong effects on some people, and none whatsoever to others. When I hear someone say "I don't much care about music" it's so hard to understand, as personally I feel it's a direct plug to emotions like none other. I regularly experience frissons when listening to an interesting piece - I've always thought everybody did! - and it can change my mood dramatically and instantly. I alw…

Well, all art is basically things with no clear value for survival. You could even say that's the definition of it :-)

Art, Reality, and the Brain: The Quest for Aesthetic Universals - Dr. V.S. Ramachandran

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fipuHMHqxU

Post reply on HN