Music Psychology Essay Example

Introduction

The study of music has earned much interest, especially in the educational sector, as neuroscientists try to demonstrate the possible impacts in human brains. Through neuroimaging, researchers have revealed developmental changes in brains of adults, and some benefits that training music has extensive skills which dwell long in adulthood. The significance of music in peoples' lives has led to an increase in studies, which aim to address brain regions and function as an appreciation. Many pieces of research revolving around the domain of cognitive neuroscience have identified functional or structural plasticity of the brain as an underlying effect of music (Lance, 2018). Initially, the standardized assessment of intellect and music ability indicated that the two aspects were correlated, and by participating in music training it induced brain improvements. The recent findings have now shifted the focus towards the impacts or benefits of music concerning specific skills and task in individuals lives.

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Part1.

Cognitive function is a cerebral activity which encompasses how human reason, their memory capacity, attention, language or manner of information acquisition. Music impacts the brain processes in that it can influence neurotransmitter which induces various react6ions such as happiness. The response in the brain is very quick such that pleasurable peaks are possible to get anticipated. Beyond the experience of music making someone feel good, there are other accrued health benefits (Daly et al., 2015). For instance, from various studies, findings reveal that music can boost immunity antibodies or cells which protect an individual against bacteria. Sometimes music can be possessive in that a day may not end without listening to music. Personally, I listen to music at specific times like when performing a task like reading, cooking or washing. The relationship between the two function of listening and physically performing gets processed automatically in the brain. Technology has changed how music sound and the manner in which we experience it by flood world with music. According to studies, what matters or the sonic range that have interest to people are the sounds we produce and perceive. Human ears and brains have evolved to capture subtle nuances that exist within the range. According to Singh & Balasubramanian (2018), in human brain just like the visual face analysis, there are parts like auditory cortex which analyzes sounds in musical frequencies. Most importantly, the brain pays attention to sounds that repeat regularly and which are most interesting to us.

Concerning brain developments, music has a crucial role for instance when training to play certain instrument scientists inform that a gray matter becomes increased in volume. As a musician, one can experience some brain function improvement, like auditory processing, learning and ability to memorize. Typically, musicians have skills to perform complex physical or mental operations such as translating visual, musical symbols into sequential movements of fingers. Such a function can be achieved without referencing the tone. Instrumental playing requires simultaneous use of multimodal sensory and feedback mechanism to help monitor performance. Such skills bring in the concept of auditory, visual and memory abilities gained by the musician. When I put my headphones on and listen to a particular album of a favorite artist, I feel like am transcending reality and this indicates an influence on cognition response. The brain has complex ability to absorb and make sense of sounds from music, in a more effective way than a computer can identify (Hodges & Wilkins, 2015). Music has effects on the brain as it can activate the regions which are involved in movements, attention or memory. When a person listens to music, he or she does not only process the sound, such as background noise but captures the repetitive words, melodies and organize to the brain capacity.

I see music as a training ground for not only skills of playing instruments but also to learn languages and listening skills. When musically trained and untrained people become compared, a much difference in performance of listening abilities and auditory is discovered. Researchers inform that people who receive music lessons are sensitive to the key and harmonics of music and gets facilitated by brain functioning. Besides, there is no doubt that as a musician, one can recognize speech in a noisy environment as an ability developed through consistent practicing. In the human brain, there is an area that enables listeners to acquires a mechanism of perceiving and understanding the music. Psychologist informs that music can activate brain areas in all people, regardless of music preference. I know from a fact that, it is not a natural tendency for someone to thrust into a crowd unlike for a given concert due to a unifying force from the music.

Music is very influential to my cognitive ability and hence the reason you would find me tapping toes or dancing due to its impact. A human brain has a potential to predict what would happen next basing the pattern from a repetition, for instance, the repeated beats of music. Also, I believe music contributed in evolution in different ways like providing children with a playful manner to develop languages or enabling adults to stay awake at night. The essence of that is memorization of knowledge when information gets passed from one generation to another. Although researcher say that music is unifying, and according to a psychologist, the effects on the brain are similar, at some point people prefers certain genres over others. In that way, the preference gets linked with factors such as emotions, a gray area in the brain that intrigues neurologist.

Part2.

When it comes to emotions, music is a powerful tool and a common phenomenon that enables individual cross boundaries of races, nationality or culture. The use of music can impact my emotions by arousing the feeling such as sadness, joy, desire or motivation. Unquestionably, music affects emotions as we tend to pay attention to those categories which reflect people's mood. A person might be happy when listening to an upbeat type of music or get sad when a slow song play (Honing, 2017). Once am angry, I can listen to dark, loud music which plays heavy instruments like guitars or drum to reflect the level of anger. Any person who has had an experience of relationship break up can understand the pleasure of an old cry to emotional music.

As students, we can listen to music to alleviate an emotional effect of stress or anxiety during a complicated cognitive process like exam studying or assignments. The practice is prevalent in that it is of significance to learning people to understand the role of music during cognitive performance. However, it is important to note that different music impact performance in various ways. I choose to listen to a specific music genre when studying even without understanding the potential adverse effects, and this catches the attention of sedative or simulating a type of music. According to studies, a specific kind of music could be distractive when a person engages in a task that is high cognitive demanding. In that way, individuals who listen to sedative music when performing tasks are productive than those listening to a stimulating category.

Music can the stimulate emotions, and we can understand what the feelings are since we experience them each day. Perhaps the main reason as to why I listen to music is the power that music has to stir emotions. When listening to music, according to neuroimaging studies, the brain areas get activated especially those associated with feelings. Deep parts of brain structure, limbic system and the pathways for transmitting dopamine becomes active. The connection that exists between listening to music and dopaminergic path gives the result of chills experienced by many people when listening to emotional songs. A chill is described as a psychological sensation where a person feels like skins hair rising or shivering. In other situations, depending on the amount of brain activation by the music, there is no doubt that a person would be willing to spend on music materials.

To understand how music is powerful when it comes to emotion driving, it should get known that music is an organized sound with various elements. The key components of music are harmony, pitch, rhythm, tempo, timber or meter all which gets processed involving the regions of the brain and neural systems (Koelsch, 2015). The sound is vibrating air molecules which connect with a person's eardrum at various varied frequencies, the pitch, and amplitudes as velocities. The auditory cortex of the brain commences the process by receiving signals from the eardrum and immediately the brain cerebellum gets activated. The cerebellum part of the brain is in charge of function such as precision, coordination or accurately timing movements. A combination of brain and the ears allows analysis of sounds while breaking the stimulus into pitch or amplitudes and in different notes.

From the studies, once a brain part, cerebellum, breaks the sensory stimulus, the signal gets passed thalamus for integration and detect the sign of situation like danger. The communication is facilitated by brain memory. Thalamus part of a brain links with amygdala so that to initiate emotional responses like fear, whenever there is danger signal alerted (Koelsch, 2014). The process can explain a situation why someone gets frightened when seeing a fight, hearing gunfire or sees a dangerous animal. The interaction processes of the brain, both low level and high level, characterize sound into music and triggers responses. Human brain process music using activation neural codes termed as firing. The electric signals passed within the brain like flashes contains neurotransmitters used in the nervous systems especially in brain parts. Some groups of neurons, firing, facilitates production of dopamine, released by the nucleus. The neurotransmitter is responsible for coordinate movement or to regulate mood. The change in moods is linked to behavioral response and hence music becomes applicable like for entertainments purpose.

Part 3.

Studies reveal that music is multi-layered in that it consists of specific auditory properties social connotations and can communicate emotions. Regarding the social and psychological aspect of music, preferences are tied to various facets of life like age or personal traits (Swaminathan & Schellenberg, 2015). The use of music will change with individual's difference such that when a person prefers emotional seeking music, he or she will switch to a particular genre. At some point, people get drawn to music styles due to factors such as toughness or rebellion. According to research, individuals like the youth possess stereotypes against the fans of a given genre of music. Such an attitude could change within time, and the age as a factor induce new preference another type of music and unison with the involved group. Musical genres such as unpretentious, mellow, contemporary, intense or sophisticated have a different preference by age and thus confirms that its usefulness is temporarily in people's lifespan. Various genres share different psychological traits like complexity and loudness, and it is not expected that an aged adult prefers loud music. Similarly, specific music is used concerning the present situations which are possible to change with time.

Additionally, the use of music might change across someone's lifespan, depending with types of people we related with, like friends or spouses. Every person has a music preference, and as long as we interact in a variable environment like school or workplace, the preference is prone to influence. However, what to consider most is a pers...