Presenter Name:Marie-Andrée Richard

School/Affiliation:University of Montreal, Department of psychology

Co-Authors:Marie-Jo Azzi, Nicholas Foster, Nathalie Gosselin, Simone Dalla Bella

Abstract:

Rhythmic music can evoke a reward experience and induce a strong desire to synchronize our movement to the beat. Indeed, it not only activates the reward system, but also engages brain regions dedicated to motor control. Moreover groove (i.e. wanting to move to the music, WTM) and music arousal influence both reward and movement. This suggests that the mechanisms underlying synchronization and music reward may partly overlap. However, it is still unclear to what extent the mechanisms underpinning synchronization and music reward are linked and how they are related.

A first step towards examining the relationship between music reward and motor synchronization is to select a set of stimuli capable to disentangle the underlying processes. To this aim, we first conducted an online study to select musical stimuli that vary in terms of arousal (relaxing – stimulating) and WTM (low – high), both variables linked to music reward.

In an online study, 193 participants listened to a randomly selected block of 24 songs from a total selection of 264 songs. For each song, participants rated how much the songs were arousing, movement-inducing, pleasant, and familiar using 100 pts visual analog scales. Scores were averaged, and songs rated as unfamiliar or unpleasant were subsequently removed.