The Emotional Rewards of Music

Listening to music is amongst the most rewarding experiences for people, yet music has no demonstrated biological value.  Robert J. Zattore, from McGill University (Quebec, Canada), and colleagues studied 26 participants who listened to self-selected intensely pleasurable music as well as “neutral” music that was individually selected for them based on low pleasure ratings they provided on other participants’ music. During music listening, the researchers conducted real-time recordings of subjective pleasure states and simultaneous recordings of sympathetic nervous system activity.  Revealing strong positive correlation between ratings of pleasure and emotional arousal, the team proposed that their results “demonstrate[e] that strongly felt emotions could be rewarding in themselves in the absence of a physically tangible reward or a specific functional goal.”