MUSIC-MAPPING THE BODY: CROSS-CULTURAL REACTIONS TO SONGS REMARKABLY CONSISTENT, SCIENTIFIC STUDY FINDS

If you've ever found yourself "feeling" the rhythm of a song, it's not just in your head: new research has established a link between music and physical sensations in the body.

From tender tunes cradling our chests to spine-tingling, scary beats setting our guts on edge, scientists say these emotional and physical responses also transcend cultures, Knewz.com has discovered.

Tender and sad songs are often felt in the chest and head, whereas scary songs elicit sensations in the gut, according to the new study. Happy and danceable songs trigger feelings throughout the body, particularly in the limbs. Aggressive music is also experienced across the body and particularly in the head, the research showed.

Scientists at the University of Turku's PET Centre in Finland published these findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America on Thursday, January 25.

"Music is inherently linked with the body," the study said, adding that "emotions, bodily sensations and movement are integral parts of musical experiences."

The team set out to investigate how the emotional and cultural aspects of music create sensations in the body, and how these effects compare across Western and Asian cultures.

A group of 1,500 participants were each presented with a music clip and a blank silhouette of a human body. The Western participants were from the United Kingdom and the United States, while the Asian participants were from China.

The music chosen for the study included Western and Asian songs from six categories: happy, sad, tender, scary, aggressive, and danceable.

The individuals listened to the music and colored the regions of the body where they felt changing activity.

"Bodily sensations evoked by music varied depending on its emotional qualities, and the music-induced bodily sensations and emotions were consistent across the tested cultures," the study found.

The music elicited feelings that varied between categories.

“Music that evoked different emotions, such as happiness, sadness or fear, caused different bodily sensations in our study," Vesa Putkinen, the study's lead author, said in a university statement. "For example, happy and danceable music was felt in the arms and legs, while tender and sad music was felt in the chest area."

East Asian participants reported more activation in the arms, legs and head across the song categories, while the Western participants showed more activation in the chest for the tender and sad songs and in the abdomen region for the scary songs, the study said.

Overall, though, the music triggered consistent experiences across the two cultures.

“Certain acoustic features of music were associated with similar emotions in both Western and Asian listeners," Lauri Nummenmaa, another co-author, said. "Music with a clear beat was found happy and danceable while dissonance in music was associated with aggressiveness. Since these sensations are similar across different cultures, music-induced emotions are likely independent of culture and learning and based on inherited biological mechanisms."

The researchers said these findings suggest bodily responses might be a key pathway in how music-induced emotions are elicited and differentiated.

“Music’s influence on the body is universal. People move to music in all cultures and synchronized postures, movements and vocalizations are a universal sign for affiliation," Putkinen said. "Music may have emerged during the evolution of human species to promote social interaction and sense of community by synchronising the bodies and emotions of the listeners.”

2024-02-01T23:39:39Z dg43tfdfdgfd