Abstract
When listening to music, people are excited by the musical cues immediately before rewarding passages. More generally, listeners attend to the antecedent cues of a salient musical event irrespective of its emotional valence. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the behavioral and cognitive mechanisms underlying the cued anticipation of the main theme’s recurrence in sonata form. Half of the main themes in the musical stimuli were of a joyful character, half a tragic character. Activity in the premotor cortex suggests that around the main theme’s recurrence, the participants tended to covertly hum along with music. The anterior thalamus, pre-supplementary motor area (preSMA), posterior cerebellum, inferior frontal junction (IFJ), and auditory cortex showed increased activity for the antecedent cues of the themes, relative to the middle-last part of the themes. Increased activity in the anterior thalamus may reflect its role in guiding attention towards stimuli that reliably predict important outcomes. The preSMA and posterior cerebellum may support sequence processing, fine-grained auditory imagery, and fine adjustments to humming according to auditory inputs. The IFJ might orchestrate the attention allocation to motor simulation and goal-driven attention. These findings highlight the attention control and audiomotor components of musical anticipation.
Highlights
Arousal and attention to reward cues play a substantial role in human reward pursuit.Spectators on the golf course focus on the long putt and almost forget to breathe
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the present study aimed to identify the neural correlates of the cued anticipation of the main themes during listening to familiar music
The participants were recruited via a public announcement on the internet, which stated that the research goal was to examine the neural responses to sonata form and that a requirement of participants was a high familiarity with Western classical music
Summary
Arousal and attention to reward cues play a substantial role in human reward pursuit.Spectators on the golf course focus on the long putt and almost forget to breathe. Arousal and attention to reward cues play a substantial role in human reward pursuit. People tend to be excited by the musical cues prior to rewarding passages. The peak pleasurable experiences of electronic dance music (EDM) are linked to two musical sections: the build-up and the ensuing drop. The rewarding drop section was found to elicit maximal skin conductance responses in listeners, while some listeners experienced chills and an urge to move their bodies during the final bars of the build-up section that announce the coming of the drop [1]. The antecedent cues of musical rewards are associated with psychological ‘wanting’ or the anticipatory phase of reward processing, leading to increasing activity in reward-related brain regions in the listeners [2,3]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
