Interbrain emotional connection during music performances is driven by physical proximity and individual traits

Abstract

How musical emotions and the pleasure derived from music, regardless of the musical valence, can be shared between individuals is a fascinating question, and investigating it can shed light on the function of musical reward. We carried out our investigations in a natural setting during an international competition for orchestra conductors. Participants (n = 15) used a dedicated smartphone app to report their subjective emotional experiences in real time while we recorded their cerebral activity using electroencephalography and their electrodermal activity. The overall behavioral real-time behavioral ratings suggest a possible social influence on the reported and felt pleasure. The physically closer the participants, the more similar their reported pleasure. By calculating the interindividual cerebral coherence (n = 21 pairs), we showed that when people simultaneously reported either high or low pleasure, their cerebral activities were closer than for simultaneous neutral pleasure reports. Participants' skin conductance levels were also more coupled when reporting higher emotional degrees simultaneously. More importantly, the participants who were physically closer had higher cerebral coherence, but only when they simultaneously reported a high level of pleasure. We propose that emotional contagion and/or emotional resonance mechanisms could explain why a form of "emotional connecting force" arises between people during shared appraisal situations.

Inter-brain coupling reflects disciplinary differences in real-world classroom learning

“…The total interdependence (TI) method was employed to calculate the inter-brain coupling by computing the magnitude squared coherence between brain signals simultaneously recorded from two students 27,28,52 . This method has been previously used in inter-brain studies to investigate individuals’ engagement and valence level in naturalistic scenarios such as a classroom and a concert hall 27,53 . To test our hypothesis, student-class coupling and student-excellence coupling were calculated for each student as indicators of the disciplinary learning process for the whole semester, as shown in Fig.3 b, c .…”

Aesthetic and physiological effects of naturalistic multimodal music listening

“…Researchers are increasingly foregoing ultimate control for a more ecologically valid approach that enables participants to have more powerful aesthetic experiences. This study follows others that have moved more into the 'wild' to explore such naturalistic experiences (Chabin et al, 2022;Czepiel et al, 2021;Dotov & Trainor, 2021;Merrill et al, 2021;Swarbrick et al, 2019;Tervaniemi et al, 2021).…”

“…However, this enhanced AE effect has been mostly assessed in laboratory settings. Recent studies are increasingly exploring such experiences in live concerts (Chabin et al, 2022; Czepiel et al, 2021; Merrill et al, 2021; Scherer et al, 2019; Swarbrick et al, 2019; Tervaniemi et al, 2021), where participants report to experience stronger emotions (Gabrielsson & Wik, 2003; Lamont, 2011); though note that Belfi et al (2021) found that felt pleasure did not differ between live and an audiovisual recording of the same performance. Focusing more specifically on the role of modality, to date only a few studies compare responses to AV vs. AO conditions in naturalistic settings.…”

“…More recent work further suggests that certain brain oscillations -particularly frontal theta -are related to music-evoked pleasure (Ara & Marco-Pallarés, 2020;Chabin et al, 2022;Sammler et al, 2007;Tervaniemi et al, 2021).…”

“…Finally, (aesthetic) emotion and judgements should be reflected in the late potential component (LPC) and reward and emotion areas in the brain. More recent work further suggests that certain brain oscillations – particularly frontal theta – are related to music-evoked pleasure (Ara & Marco-Pallarés, 2020; Chabin et al, 2022; Sammler et al, 2007; Tervaniemi et al, 2021).…”