Let's Dance!

What is it that pulls us out on to that dance floor?

I reported in my past newsletters about this heavenly tool called music. ‘Time’ to now give it some more attention.

From the newsletter, Bundled tidbits on brain/behavior. These influences will surprise you.

“Music makes our language Joan Didion famously said, “Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power. Style is character." Her prose language is musical, but also mathematical, in that she engineered her writing to sing. New research now shows that musicality and especially, rhythm, enhance language learning.”

But what about music that makes us MOVE?

Why do humans spontaneously dance to music? To test the hypothesis that motor dynamics reflect predictive timing during music listening, we created melodies with varying degrees of rhythmic predictability (syncopation) and asked participants to rate their wanting-to-move (groove) experience. Degree of syncopation and groove ratings are quadratically correlated. Magnetoencephalography data showed that, while auditory regions track the rhythm of melodies, beat-related 2-hertz activity and neural dynamics at delta (1.4 hertz) and beta (20 to 30 hertz) rates in the dorsal auditory pathway code for the experience of groove. Critically, the left sensorimotor cortex coordinates these groove-related delta and beta activities. These findings align with the predictions of a neurodynamic model, suggesting that oscillatory motor engagement during music listening reflects predictive timing and is effected by interaction of neural dynamics along the dorsal auditory pathway. - A Zalta et al

Twelve 8-s melodies with a 2-Hz beat were created. For each melody, three variants were designed to vary the level of rhythmic predictability (degree of syncopation) while minimizing other acoustic variations. (A) Example of a melody with a low (black), medium (gray), or high (light gray) degree of syncopation. (B) Averaged modulation spectrum of the acoustic temporal envelope of the melodies, for each of the three conditions. a.u., arbitrary units. (C) Degree of syncopation of the melodies, grouped by condition. Each dot represents one melody. (D) Amplitude of the acoustic envelope at 2 Hz (in decibels; “2-Hz acoustic”), as a function of the degree of syncopation, across melodies. Data were approximated with a linear function. Pearson’s r2 is reported. Shades of gray indicate the conditions. (E) Behavioral tapping experiment: distribution of the instantaneous frequency of finger tapping per condition, cumulated across melodies and participants, recorded while participants were reproducing the rhythm of their dance step while listening to the melodies. (F) MEG experiment: Statistical map of neural coding of the acoustic temporal modulation spectrum, from the power spectrum of the whole-brain MEG signals recorded while participants were listening to melodies (q < 0.05, FDR-corrected). Credit: Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adi2525

The research looked at syncopation [unaccented beats that occur in surprising places in a melody] and the beat [the pace at which music is played, divided into even units of time.] Melodies with a medium degree of syncopation caused the strongest desire to dance. It’s the brain's attempt to anticipate beats among the syncopation, causing the body to literally lean forward repeatedly.

But what if the song gets ‘stuck’ in our heads on continuous loop play?

https://spinditty.com/playlists/top-ten-earworms

‘Earworms’ are a universal experience across humanity. Researchers nailed down the crucial characteristics that create this phenomenon.

“Earworms” have been proposed as a particular type of involuntary musical imagery (INMI) where musical material is repeated in the mind. The structure of the repetition is investigated by proposing a spreading activation model (SAM), where mental experience consists of priming and activation of nodes that represent objects, events, and relationships, including music. Music consists of chaining together nodes representing small music segments within hierarchical structures. Listening to music at a point in time activates the music’s represented segment, which then primes the node representing the segment that follows. Repeating musical segments are coded recursively, with an additional layer of “context” nodes tracking global, structural location. From this basis, two hypotheses were proposed: H1 “Contiguous repetition at encoding” and H2 “Low environmental focus.” H1 predicts that when an INMI episode is a contiguously repeating segment, it must be based on music that contains contiguous repetition: it will be perceived as a subset of INMI – involuntary, limited, and contiguously repeating musical imagery (InLaCReMI). H1 challenges current views about preferred segments for looping, such as the “hook” of a tune. H2 predicts that InLaCReMI occurs when an individual is not focused on the immediate environment. In such a state there is less social imperative to activate high attentional-demand contextual information and so adherence to contextual integrity in thought is relaxed, leading to looping of recurrently activated nodes that were encoded with contiguous repetition. Additional predictions were made using SAM, demonstrating the potential for SAM to provide a unifying understanding of INMI. InLaCReMI is proposed as a frequently occurring species of INMI and confirmation of this phenomenon through more structured empirical investigation will provide novel insights into mental operation, and the nature of INMI. - E Schubert

An essential component is repetition. The most common earworms are from the chorus of songs, which are usually repeated the most. In order for an earworm to happen, it must be recently heard and music familiar. When letting your mind wander, the music fragment sneaks into your consciousness, and takes hold.

As an example, for your listening pleasure, here is a lil’ ditty that is both a music mover and an earworm. Enjoy!

Finally, l want to point you to my past newsletter, Music is Magic. I have opened it up to all, paid and freebie alike. Mucho more info there!

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REFERENCES

A Zalta et al. Neural dynamics of predictive timing and motor engagement in music listening. Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adi2525.

E Schubert. Involuntary, Limited, and Contiguously Repeating Musical Imagery (InLaCReMI): Reconciling Theory and Data on the Musical Material Acquired by Earworms, Music & Science (2023). DOI:10.1177/20592043231165661