Browsing by Subject "explicit"

Music has an important role in our everyday lives. It is a powerful way of conveying and inducing emotions. It is even described as the language of emotions. Still, the research on the processing of musical emotions and its variations among individuals is scarce. In addition, it is not known whether the same or different neural pathways are recruited when musical emotions are processed with or without conscious awareness (i.e., implicitly or explicitly). The central aims of this thesis are 1. to examine the neural basis of the processing of musical emotions, namely happy, sad and fearful, 2. to determine the neural networks underlying the implicit and explicit processing of musical emotions and 3. to discern the effects of personality on this processing. 31 participants (mean age 27.4 years, 9 men) attended the study. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to assess the brain activation as the participants listened to musical excerpts expressing three emotions: sadness, happiness, and fear. In the implicit paradigm, participants estimated how many instruments they heard in the stimulus (one, two or many). In the explicit paradigm, participants chose the emotion that best described the stimulus (happy, sad, or fearful). Personality was evaluated using two personality questionnaires, NEO-FFI and S5. Each of the three emotions studied activated different brain regions. Processing of happy music activated the auditory cortex, processing of sad music activated the limbic and frontal areas, and processing of fearful music activated areas of the limbic system, the frontal cortex and the motor cortex. As was expected, implicit processing of musical emotions recruited both cortical and subcortical regions whereas explicit processing activated mainly cortical regions. In addition, personality traits of neuroticism, extraversion and openness affected the processing of musical emotions. Neuroticism correlated with increased activation in the temporal and frontal lobe in response to music expressing negative emotions, and in the subcortical areas in response to happy music. Extraversion correlated with decreased activation in the limbic areas in response to happy music. Openness correlated with activations in the occipital regions in response to happy and sad music. These results highlight the importance of individual differences in the processing of musical emotions and offer perspectives on the applied use of music in health care and educational settings.