Laypeople and Experts Experience Emotional Thrills Listening to Penderecki

Laypeople just as often as experts experience emotional thrills while listening to Penderecki.

Event Description

Listening to 'The Seven Gates of Jerusalem' by Krzysztof Penderecki, laypeople experience emotional thrills just as often as experts. While experts analyzed fragments of the piece more, their emotional reception did not differ depending on the level of preparation of the listeners - this was shown by a UJ experiment.

The main reason we listen to music is the emotions it provides - this is supported by research showing that its effect is much more versatile. Music can activate brain areas and create new connections between them, allowing us to be, for example, more intellectually capable, as reported by the Brain Research Center of the Jagiellonian University.

Earlier studies, conducted for example at McGill University, showed that in individuals who experience so-called thrills while listening to music, deeper-lying subcortical brain structures are activated. Psychologist Matthew Sachs observed that among individuals experiencing thrills, there was a greater number of neural connections between the auditory cortex and the anterior insular cortex (responsible for integrating experiences from various senses and emotional experiences) and the medial prefrontal cortex (responsible for, among other things, control, including emotional control).

Details of the Experiment

However, to what extent can these results be translated to the reception of contemporary music, often considered hermetic, evoking strong, hard-to-identify emotions? This was what researchers from the Brain Research Center of the Jagiellonian University wanted to find out in collaboration with the European Center for Music by Krzysztof Penderecki in Lusławice.

They conducted an experiment in which participants listened to 11 selected fragments of the composition 'The Seven Gates of Jerusalem' by Krzysztof Penderecki. This piece is distinguished, among other things, by its specific dramaturgy and high degree of complexity in sound texture. The selection of fragments was made by Prof. Maciej Tworek – conductor, expert, and interpreter of Krzysztof Penderecki’s works.

The study using magnetic resonance imaging involved ten people, five laypeople and five experts, connoisseurs of contemporary music, including Prof. Tworek himself. Nearly 40 additional people, after listening to the piece, were asked to determine the emotional significance of a given fragment as, for example, lyrical, ominous, ceremonial, dance-like, or neutral.

'Our starting point was to investigate the degree of understanding of the musical language of this piece. We also wanted to explore something that in the narrative regarding this project we call moving moments, colloquially referred to as 'chills' or 'thrills', which are physiological sensations associated with a strong emotional reaction evoked by listening to music' – said PAP Prof. Michał Wierzchoń, director of the Brain Research Center at UJ.

It turned out that the auditory cortex in experts was activated less strongly than in laypeople. According to Prof. Wierzchoń, this may result from a better familiarity with the piece. 'The brains of experts reacted less to the stimuli. Prof. Tworek emphasized in a discussion about the results of the experiment that when he listened to these fragments, he anticipated what would happen next in the piece. Such prior experience may explain the differences between laypeople and experts' – pointed out Prof. Wierzchoń.

During the MRI study, researchers also observed a stronger activation of the prefrontal cortex regions in experts. This region is responsible for working memory, planning, and predicting the consequences of decisions made. 'Experts analyzed the fragments of the symphony more, experiencing them in a more analytical way' – said the cognitive psychologist.

The researcher noted that even in such a small group of subjects, it was possible to observe physiological reactions evoked by listening to music, i.e., the so-called thrills. The fragments that the subjects identified as significant and moving activated parts of the brain that create a network of significance, including the cingulate gyrus, the insular cortex, and the frontal gyrus.

'Special moments appeared in experts very systematically, especially during ceremonial moments, which is where we would expect them. In laypeople, reactions were more varied, which is interesting – because it shows that their reception of music was more individualized' – described the researcher. 'On average, each person experienced about twenty emotional moments while listening to these 11 fragments. The analysis of the activation of the limbic system, the areas responsible for processing emotions, shows that both groups experienced emotions related to listening to this music to a similar degree. So it is not true that experts, knowing this piece so well, do not experience strong emotions associated with it, nor is it true that this music is incomprehensible to laypeople, and thus they do not exhibit such reactions'.

The analysis, in which a given fragment had to be assigned to a specific category of emotional significance, did not significantly differ between experts and laypeople. 'We see, therefore, that the programmatic nature of this music (the transmission of specific content by the music – PAP) was so clear that laypeople also noticed it. Our subjects perceived this piece emotionally, regardless of their level of preparation' – summarized the researcher.

Plans for the Future

However, the group on which the experiment was conducted is too small to publish the results in a scientific journal – researchers want to conduct similar analyses in the future. They intend to check, among other things, whether similar results can be observed in other works of contemporary music.

Source of information: Science in Poland

More information: PAP MediaRoom