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5:32 · 937 words of transcript · watch on YouTube
- Canadian researchers found in 2011 that listening to music releases dopamine, the same reward chemical involved in eating, sleeping and sex, despite music not being needed for survival.
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- The region that lights up is the default mode network, most active during introspection and daydreaming, and the same system used to reprocess memories and the feelings attached to them.
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- With a favourite song that network becomes more active still and reaches into the areas handling higher-order thinking, analysis and evaluation.
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- In a study where strangers got acquainted over six weeks, music was the most discussed subject, outweighing books, films and television combined.
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- Conversation about every other category fell away over those weeks while music stayed among the most common topics throughout.
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- The same network is impaired in Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and autism, which raises the question of whether music can help treat some associated symptoms.
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- That network is also active when reflecting on hopes and plans, which is the mechanism behind the creativity people report while listening.
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- Alf Gabrielsson surveyed over a thousand people about their most intense experience with music, and their descriptions closely matched Maslow's account of peak experiences.
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- Adam Croom's framework names five factors through which music enhances experience: positive emotion, relationships, engagement, achievement and meaning.
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- The closing argument is that the music resonates because it is already someone else's processed feeling, which is why it arrives when a listener most needs it.
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