Alpha and beta cortical activity during guitar playing: task complexity and audiovisual stimulus analysis

Spectral Characteristics of EEG during Active Emotional Musical Performance

The research on neural correlates of intentional emotion communication by the music performer is still limited. In this study, we attempted to evaluate EEG patterns recorded from musicians who were instructed to perform a simple piano score while manipulating their manner of play to express specific contrasting emotions and self-rate the emotion they reflected on the scales of arousal and valence. In the emotional playing task, participants were instructed to improvise variations in a manner by which the targeted emotion is communicated. In contrast, in the neutral playing task, participants were asked to play the same piece precisely as written to obtain data for control over general patterns of motor and sensory activation during playing. The spectral analysis of the signal was applied as an initial step to be able to connect findings to the wider field of music-emotion research. The experimental contrast of emotional playing vs. neutral playing was employed to probe brain activity patterns differentially involved in distinct emotional states. The tasks of emotional and neutral playing differed considerably with respect to the state of intended-to-transfer emotion arousal and valence levels. The EEG activity differences were observed between distressed/excited and neutral/depressed/relaxed playing.

Electrophysiological Correlation Underlying the Effects of Music Preference on the Prefrontal Cortex Using a Brain-Computer Interface

This study aims to research the task of recognising brain activities in the prefrontal cortex that correspond to music at different preference levels. Since task performance regarding the effects of the subjects’ favourite music can lead to better outcomes, we focus on the physical interpretation of electroencephalography (EEG) bands underlying the preference level for music. The experiment was implemented using a continuous response digital interface for the preference classification of three types of musical stimuli. The results showed that favourite songs more significantly evoked frontal theta than did the music of low and moderate preference levels. Additionally, correlations of frontal theta with cognitive state indicated that the frontal theta is associated not only with the cognitive state but also with emotional processing. These findings demonstrate that favourite songs can have more positive effects on listeners than less favourable music and suggest that theta and lower alpha in the frontal cortex are good indicators of both cognitive state and emotion.