Oh, E.J., and Lee, K.M.* (2023, August). Musical pleasure revealed by electroencephalography theta oscillations: A systematic review. 17th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC), Tokyo.
Abstract
Introduction
Musical pleasure is the hedonic response deeply related to the sensation and the reward system. The dopaminergic activation is increased in the dorsal and ventral striatum when the listeners anticipate a pleasurable event and a peak emotional arousal (Salimpoor et al., 2011). Given that music unfolds through time, various neuroscience studies suggest electrophysiological evidence of pleasure by investigating the temporal dynamics of musical emotions over the decades (Sammler et al., 2007; Nemati et al., 2019). Most of these studies reported that activation of the theta band from the frontal, temporal, or medial cortex is associated with musical pleasantness. Although it is plausible that theta oscillation underlies musical pleasure, there is no framework that provides an understanding of this phenomenon.
Aims
This research reviews neuroscience studies using electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the experience of musical pleasure with the temporal dynamics of theta oscillations in the context of passive music listening. For this purpose, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses 2020 guidelines (Page et al., 2021) were driven to report a systematic review. Articles were searched on Web of Science, EBSCO Academic Search Complete, PsycINFO, ProQuest APA PsycArticles, and PubMed (the last search date: August 1st, 2022) with keywords connected by the Boolean operators: “music” AND “theta” AND (“pleasure” OR “pleasantness”). The retrieved records were a total of 45 articles from five databases, and 11 studies were screened with the following five criteria: 1) written in English, 2) peer-reviewed journal, 3) empirical research via quantitative methods, 4) using neurophysiological data, and 5) records relevant to the research question. Three additional articles were included for the review by backward citation search.
Main Contribution
The review of the definition of musical pleasure showed a gradual change as the research progressed. In the early stage, musical pleasure referred to the music itself compared to other sounds like noise. After a two-dimensional model of emotion (valence/arousal) was proposed, pleasure began to be classified as a basic emotion state among the four quadrants. In this aspect, musical consonants (counterpart to dissonant) in chords or tonality (major/minor) were investigated as a factor of musical pleasure. Recently, musical pleasure as a term referring to a specific emotional state, has been used interchangeably with liking and enjoyment and has begun to measure its degree through subjective evaluation.
Despite these changes in definition, the association between musical pleasure and the amplitude of theta band in frontomedial cortex has been consistently reported regardless of the lyric or familiarity factor. In addition, phase synchronization, the recent analysis methodology, has revealed that the degree of pleasure may be associated with frontoparietal or frontotemporal connectivity, depending on the familiarity factor.
Implications
These findings imply that neural activities in theta frequency may be used as a biomarker to evaluate the individual pleasurable level during musical events. While there is a growing number of musical environments enhancing multimodal experiences, the results can provide a specific explanation for adjusting EEG-based neurofeedback on other sensory modalities. In addition, it can also give a way to regulate emotional valence for a therapeutic purpose (e.g., mood depression, anhedonia, etc.) through music listening.
References
Nemati, S., Akrami, H., Salehi, S., Esteky, H., & Moghimi, S. (2019). Lost in music: neural signature of pleasure and its role in modulating attentional resources. Brain Research, 1711, 7-15.
Page, M. J., McKenzie, J. E., Bossuyt, P. M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T. C., Mulrow, C. D., ... & Moher, D. (2021). The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. International journal of surgery, 88, 105906.
Salimpoor, V. N., Benovoy, M., Larcher, K., Dagher, A., & Zatorre, R. J. (2011). Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature neuroscience, 14(2), 257-262.
Sammler, D., Grigutsch, M., Fritz, T., & Koelsch, S. (2007). Music and emotion: electrophysiological correlates of the processing of pleasant and unpleasant music. Psychophysiology, 44(2), 293-304.
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