Home> Archive> 2013> Volume 3 Number 5 (Sep. 2013)
IJSSH 2013 Vol.3(5): 453-456 ISSN: 2010-3646
DOI: 10.7763/IJSSH.2013.V3.281

Music and Brain Today

Mladen Milicevic and Loyola Marymount

Abstract—The most recent research in neuroscience shows that the human brain “deconstructs” music patterns and then takes the elements of that “deconstruction” in order to store them in the brain’s multiple memory locations. The retrieval of memory from these multiple neural circuits is required in order to reconstruct in our mind the representation of those music patterns. The smoothness of this process is heavily dependent on repeated use of the same neural circuits for the similar, if not the same purposes. Increased smoothness also increases the emotional reward system and we have a pleasurable listening experience. This smoothness can also be defined in terms of fulfilled expectations of what might happen. One of the reasons why the human brain searches for previously identified and processed patterns is that such patterns can be very quickly reconstructed from the data stored in the brain's long-term memory. Then that reconstruction can be compared with similar incoming information, giving it the most pragmatic interpretation that fits the situation at hand. So the function of memory is to ignore irrelevant details, while preserving the gist. This could be “good” or “bad” music but it can more importantly be related to the survival of the species in terms of “friend or foe.”

Index Terms—Music, brain, cognition, processing.

Mladen Milicevicis with the Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, USA (e-mail: mladen.milicevic@lmu.edu).

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Cite:Mladen Milicevic and Loyola Marymount, "Music and Brain Today," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 453-456, 2013.

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