Misattribution of #musical #arousal increases sexual attraction towards opposite-sex faces in females
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0183531
Several theories about the origins of music have emphasized its biological and social functions, including in courtship. Music may act as a courtship display due to its capacity to vary in complexity and emotional content. Support for music’s reproductive function comes from the recent finding that only women in the fertile phase of the reproductive cycle prefer composers of complex melodies to composers of simple ones as short-term sexual partners, which is also in line with the ovulatory shift hypothesis. However, the precise mechanisms by which music may influence sexual attraction are unknown, specifically how music may interact with visual attractiveness cues and affect perception and behaviour in both genders. Using a crossmodal priming paradigm, we examined whether listening to music influences ratings of facial attractiveness and dating desirability of opposite-sex faces. We also tested whether misattribution of arousal or pleasantness underlies these effects, and explored whether sex differences and menstrual cycle phase may be moderators.
Our sample comprised 64 women in the fertile or infertile phase (no hormonal contraception use) and 32 men, carefully matched for mood, relationship status, and musical preferences. Musical primes (25 s) varied in arousal and pleasantness, and targets were photos of faces with neutral expressions (2 s). Group-wise analyses indicated that women, but not men, gave significantly higher ratings of facial attractiveness and dating desirability after having listened to music than in the silent control condition.
High-arousing, complex music yielded the largest effects, suggesting that music may affect human courtship behaviour through induced arousal, which calls for further studies on the mechanisms by which music affects sexual attraction in real-life social contexts
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0183531
Several theories about the origins of music have emphasized its biological and social functions, including in courtship. Music may act as a courtship display due to its capacity to vary in complexity and emotional content. Support for music’s reproductive function comes from the recent finding that only women in the fertile phase of the reproductive cycle prefer composers of complex melodies to composers of simple ones as short-term sexual partners, which is also in line with the ovulatory shift hypothesis. However, the precise mechanisms by which music may influence sexual attraction are unknown, specifically how music may interact with visual attractiveness cues and affect perception and behaviour in both genders. Using a crossmodal priming paradigm, we examined whether listening to music influences ratings of facial attractiveness and dating desirability of opposite-sex faces. We also tested whether misattribution of arousal or pleasantness underlies these effects, and explored whether sex differences and menstrual cycle phase may be moderators.
Our sample comprised 64 women in the fertile or infertile phase (no hormonal contraception use) and 32 men, carefully matched for mood, relationship status, and musical preferences. Musical primes (25 s) varied in arousal and pleasantness, and targets were photos of faces with neutral expressions (2 s). Group-wise analyses indicated that women, but not men, gave significantly higher ratings of facial attractiveness and dating desirability after having listened to music than in the silent control condition.
High-arousing, complex music yielded the largest effects, suggesting that music may affect human courtship behaviour through induced arousal, which calls for further studies on the mechanisms by which music affects sexual attraction in real-life social contexts
journals.plos.org
Misattribution of musical arousal increases sexual attraction towards opposite-sex faces in females
Several theories about the origins of music have emphasized its biological and social functions, including in courtship. Music may act as a courtship display due to its capacity to vary in complexity and emotional content. Support for music’s reproductive…
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#Musical reward prediction errors engage the nucleus accumbens and motivate #learning
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/02/05/1809855116
Enjoying music reliably ranks among life’s greatest pleasures. Like many hedonic experiences, it engages several reward-related brain areas, with activity in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) most consistently reflecting the listener’s subjective response. Converging evidence suggests that this activity arises from musical “reward prediction errors” (RPEs) that signal the difference between expected and perceived musical events, but this hypothesis has not been directly tested.
We modeled regressors of trial-by-trial RPEs, finding that NAc activity tracked musically elicited RPEs, to an extent that explained variance in the individual learning rates. These results demonstrate that music can act as a reward, driving learning and eliciting RPEs in the NAc, a hub of reward- and music enjoyment-related activity.
#Musical reward prediction errors engage the nucleus accumbens and motivate #learning
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/02/05/1809855116
Enjoying music reliably ranks among life’s greatest pleasures. Like many hedonic experiences, it engages several reward-related brain areas, with activity in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) most consistently reflecting the listener’s subjective response. Converging evidence suggests that this activity arises from musical “reward prediction errors” (RPEs) that signal the difference between expected and perceived musical events, but this hypothesis has not been directly tested.
We modeled regressors of trial-by-trial RPEs, finding that NAc activity tracked musically elicited RPEs, to an extent that explained variance in the individual learning rates. These results demonstrate that music can act as a reward, driving learning and eliciting RPEs in the NAc, a hub of reward- and music enjoyment-related activity.
PNAS
Musical reward prediction errors engage the nucleus accumbens and motivate learning
Prediction errors are crucial for perception, learning, and adaptability. Can they also explain the abstract pleasures we derive from seemingly nonadaptive behaviors? We present evidence of musically elicited reward prediction errors (RPEs), illustrating…
The relationship between playing #musical instruments and #cognitive trajectories: Analysis from a UK ageing cohort
https://2medical.news/2024/02/10/the-relationship-between-playing-musical-instruments-and-cognitive-trajectories-analysis-from-a-uk-ageing-cohort/
https://2medical.news/2024/02/10/the-relationship-between-playing-musical-instruments-and-cognitive-trajectories-analysis-from-a-uk-ageing-cohort/
2Medical.News
The relationship between playing #musical instruments and #cognitive trajectories: Analysis from a UK ageing cohort
The accumulation of age-associated cognitive deficits can lead to Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and dementia. This is a major public health issue for the modern ageing population, as it impairs h…