From lullabies to live concerts: How music and rhythm shape our social brains

March 27, 2018

Science Daily/Cognitive Neuroscience Society

A universal sign of motherhood is the lullaby. The world over, mothers sing to their babies, whether Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, their favorite song from the radio, or even random notes. This universality makes the simple lullaby a great window into the human mind. In a new study, cognitive neuroscientists found that lullabies soothe both moms and babies simultaneously, while playsongs increase babies' attention and displays of positive emotion toward their mothers.

The behavioral implications of music are vast, says Laura Cirelli of the University of Toronto Mississauga, who is presenting the new work on maternal singing at the 25th meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) in Boston today. "Infant brains must be able to track auditory events in a predictive manner to make sense of music," she explains, and many complex things are going on in their brains to make that possible.

From infancy to old age, music demands much from the human brain. Learning more about how we process music is helping scientists better understand perception, multisensory integration, and social coordination across the lifespan. Technological advancements -- for example, more portable electroencephalography (EEG) and electrophysiology set-ups and- are allowing cognitive neuroscientists to study music in a variety of situations, from mother-child interactions to live concert halls.

"Music and rhythm are human universals but do not appear to be shared by most other species," says Jessica Grahn of the University of Western Ontario who is chairing the CNS session on musical rhythm and who co-authored a new study of live music and brain rhythms. "Rhythm in particular is mysterious: We are sensitive to the 'beat' -- that steady, underlying pulse that we tap our foot or bob our head to -- from early in life. But, even after decades of trying, 'beat-tracking' algorithms can't approach anything like the automaticity and flexibility that humans show to feel the beat across different speeds, genres, and instruments."

Music for mom and baby

While working at a daycare one summer as an undergraduate student, Cirelli was at a playground when a 2-year-old girl asked her for help down the slide. The rest of the toddlers saw this, looked at each other, and excitedly ran over to line up and wait their turn. "I was amazed at the complexity of their social understanding at an age where they can't even tell us what they are thinking," she explains. This sent her down the path of exploring how sociality develops at a young age, and as a piano player and ballerina, the natural fit was to use music as a way to understand the social brain.

In her new study on lullabies, Cirelli and colleagues investigated how mothers adjust their infant-directed singing depending on their goal, to be soothing or to be playful. The participating mothers repeatedly sang Twinkle Twinkle to their babies who were sitting in a highchair facing them. The mothers alternated between singing in a playful way or a soothing manner. At the same time, researchers were tracking the mothers' and babies' arousal responses, measured through skin conductance and behavior. "When we are excited or stressed, arousal levels increase," Cirelli explains. "When we are calm, they decrease."

The researchers found that the moms' arousal levels were higher during playful compared to soothing song. And they found coordinated decreases in arousal for both the moms and babies as the soothing songs progressed. In the playful conditions, the babies' arousal levels remained stable and their attention to mother and displays of positive emotion increased. "The findings show the physiological and behavioral changes by mom and baby to different song styles."

This study builds on a growing body of work about the social implications of musical engagement with others. Cirelli points to past studies showing that when people move together in synchrony, they feel socially connected and are later more likely to help and cooperate with one another. And in a study of toddlers, she and colleagues had similar findings: 14-month-olds who bounced synchronously with unfamiliar adults helped those adults substantially more by retrieving dropped objects than those who bounced with them asynchronously. "Music is a tool that we can use to bring people together, and this starts in infancy."

Music for a live audience

Despite being able to listen to music from virtually anywhere in modern times, people will still pay hundreds of dollars for the opportunity attend a live musical performance. Why? This question helps drive forward the work of Grahn and Molly Henry, both of the University of Ontario.

In new work she will be presenting at the CNS meeting today, Henry used the LIVELab at McMaster University to test how the presence of live performers and an audience changes the experience of concert-goers at a neural level, Specifically, she and colleagues looked at brain rhythm synchronization.

A live band played in front of 80 people, 20 of whom were having their brain activity recorded with EEG. They then compared those EEG measurements to those in two other conditions: one, in which 20 audience members were watching a recording of the first concert on a large movie screen with audio identical to the live concert; and another in which 20 participants in small groups of 2 were seated apart while they observed the recorded musical performance. "Thus, we manipulated the presence of the performers while keeping audience context fixed," the authors explain.

They found that audience members' brain waves were more synchronized with each other when the performers were present. Moreover, individuals whose brain rhythms were more synched up with other audience members enjoyed the concert more and felt more connected to the performers.

"I was extremely excited to see that across the live audience, brain rhythms were synchronized in exactly the frequency range that corresponds to the 'beat' of the music, so it looks as if the beat is driving audience brain rhythms," Henry says. "That may seem common sense, but it's really something. These are novel findings in the context of live music listening that are providing insights into the more social side of music listening."

Music for the future

Moving forward, Henry says that the biggest challenge for studying musical rhythm is that "there's so much other stuff tied up in the experience of music and rhythm listening or performing. Music makes us want to move, it elicits emotions, it triggers memories." Teasing apart these influences will require creative stimulus and experimental design combined with integration of converging evidence across lots of different studies.

In the meantime, Grahn says: "We are seeing relationships between rhythm and language abilities, attention, development, hearing acuity, and even social interactions. Every sensation we have or action we make on the world unfolds over time, and we are now beginning to understand why humans are sensitive to certain types of patterns in time, but not others." Understanding these patterns will inform not only basic science, she says, but also potential music-driven therapies for patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180327102835.htm

How singing your heart out could make you happier

December 21, 2017

University of East Anglia

Singing in groups could make you happier, according to new research. Researchers examined the benefits of singing among people with mental health conditions including anxiety and depression. They found that people who took part in a community singing group maintained or improved their mental health. And that the combination of singing and socializing was an essential part of recovery because it promoted an ongoing feeling of belonging and wellbeing.

Lead researcher Prof Tom Shakespeare from UEA's Norwich Medical School and his researcher Dr Alice Whieldon worked in collaboration with the Sing Your Heart Out (SYHO) project, based in Norfolk.

The grassroots initiative runs weekly singing workshops, aimed at people with mental health conditions as well as the general public. It originally began at Hellesdon psychiatric hospital in 2005, but afterwards moved into the community. Around 120 people now attend four free workshops each week across Norfolk -- two thirds of whom have had contact with mental health services.

The research project followed the group for six months and undertook interviews and focus groups with participants, organisers, and workshop leaders.

Prof Shakespeare said: "We found that singing as part of a group contributes to people's recovery from mental health problems.

"The main way that Sing Your Heart Out differs from a choir is that anyone can join in regardless of ability. There's also very little pressure because the participants are not rehearsing towards a performance. It's very inclusive and it's just for fun.

"The format is also different to a therapy group because there's no pressure for anyone to discuss their condition.

"We heard the participants calling the initiative a 'life saver' and that it 'saved their sanity'. Others said they simply wouldn't be here without it, they wouldn't have managed -- so we quickly began to see the massive impact it was having.

"All of the participants we spoke to reported positive effects on their mental health as a direct result of taking part in the singing workshops.

"For some it represented one component of a wider progamme of support. For others it stood out as key to their recovery or maintenance of health.

"But the key thing for everyone was that the Sing Your Heart Out model induced fun and happiness."

The report shows how a combination of singing and social engagement gave participants a feeling of belonging and wellbeing that often lasted a day or more, as well as improved social skills and confidence.

Taking part on a weekly basis provided structure, support and contact that helped people improve their mood, feel good, and function better in day-to-day life.

"The Sing Your Heart Out model offers a low-commitment, low-cost tool for mental health recovery within the community," added Prof Shakespeare.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171221101402.htm

Singing's secret power: The Ice-breaker Effect

Singing together produces faster bonding in groups

October 27, 2015

Science Daily/University of Oxford

A study with adult learners showed groups doing singing bonded faster than others. The study looked at how people attending adult education classes grew closer over seven months. The conclusion -- singing groups bonded more quickly than creative writing or craft classes.

We have long known the power of a good sing-along. Now, research from the University of Oxford has shown that singing is a great ice-breaker and can get groups of people to bond together more quickly than other activities can.

The new study, published in the Royal Society's Open Science journal, looked at how people attending adult education classes grew closer over seven months. The conclusion -- singing groups bonded more quickly than creative writing or craft classes.

Dr Eiluned Pearce, from Oxford's Department of Experimental Psychology led the research. She said: 'One of the key differences between humans and other primates is that we can exist in much larger social groups. Singing is found in all human societies and can be performed to some extent by the vast majority of people. It's been suggested that singing is one of the ways in which we build social cohesion when there isn't enough time to establish one-to-one connections between everyone in a group.

'We wanted to explore whether there was something special about singing as a bonding behaviour or whether any group activity would build bonds between members.'

To test the theory, the researchers worked with charity the Workers' Educational Association (WEA), the UK's largest voluntary sector provider of adult education. The WEA set up seven courses, four in singing, two in crafts and one in creative writing. Each course, made up of weekly sessions, was run over seven months, with a break in the middle.

Those attending the classes were given surveys before and after individual sessions in the first month, in the third month and at the end of the seven-month course. In it, they were asked to rate how close they felt to their classmates.

Dr Pearce said: 'We had expected the singing classes to feel closer to each other than the other classes at the end of the seven months. However, we found something different.

'For every class, people felt closer to each other at the end of each two-hour session than they did at the start. At the end of the seven months, all the classes were reporting similar levels of closeness.

'The difference between the singers and the non-singers appeared right at the start of the study. In the first month, people in the singing classes became much closer to each other over the course of a single class than those in the other classes did. Singing broke the ice better than the other activities, getting the group together faster by giving a boost to how close classmates felt towards each other right at the start of the course.

'In the longer term, it appears that all group activities bring people together similar amounts. In non-singing classes ties strengthened as people talked to each other either during lessons or during breaks. But this is the first clear evidence that singing is a powerful means of bonding a whole group simultaneously.'

Howard Croft, WEA Project Manager, said: 'We're really pleased to have taken part in this experiment, which has shown that singing can be a great way to form close bonds with others. Feeling connected to those around you, be it friends or family, is one of the key ways to improve your wellbeing. Adult education of every kind can help improve mental health and boost self-esteem, but singing together is a uniquely communal experience that can foster better relations between people from all walks of life.'

The research is part of a series of studies looking at how music leads to social bonding. Co-author Dr Jacques Launay said: 'Given that music-making is an important part of all human cultures throughout history we think it probably evolved to serve some purpose. Evidence suggests that the really special thing that music does for us is encourage social bonding between whole groups of people playing and dancing together'.

Dr Pearce added: 'Really close relationships still depend on interactions between individuals or much smaller groups, but this study shows singing can kick start the bonding process.'

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151027213419.htm