Music-based interventions in community settings: Navigating the tension between rigor and ecological validity.

Empirical research of community-based music interventions has advanced to investigate the individual, social, and educational implications of arts-for-wellbeing practices. Here, we present the motivations, aims, hypotheses, and implications of this complex field of inquiry. We describe examples of recent large-scale investigations to reflect on the major methodological challenges. Community-based music interventions strike a balance between the empirical rigor of clinical trials and the demands of ecological validity. We argue that this balance should be viewed as an asset rather than a mere pragmatic compromise. We also offer some perspectives on best-practice models for effectively engaging in this type of work.

Stressalyzer: Convolutional Neural Network Framework for Personalized Stress Classification.

Stress detection and monitoring is an active area of research with important implications for an individual's personal, professional, and social health. Current approaches for stress classification use traditional machine learning algorithms trained on features computed from multiple sensor modalities. These methods are data and computation-intensive, rely on hand-crafted features, and lack reproducibility. These limitations impede the practical use of stress detection and classification systems in the real world. To overcome these shortcomings, we propose Stressalyzer, a novel stress classification and personalization framework from single-modality sensor data without feature computation and selection. Stressalyzer uses only Electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor data while providing competitive results compared to the state-of-the-art techniques that use multiple sensor modalities and are computationally expensive due to the calculation of large number of features. Using the dataset collected in a laboratory setting from 15 subjects, our single-channel neural network-based model achieves a classification accuracy of 92.9% and an f1 score of 0.89 for binary stress classification. Our leave-one-subject-out analysis establishes the subjective nature of stress and shows that personalizing stress models using Stressalyzer significantly improves the model performance. Without model personalization, we found a performance decline in 40% of the subjects, suggesting the need for model personalization.

Speech-in-noise perception in musicians and non-musicians: A multi-level meta-analysis.

Speech-in-noise perception, the ability to hear a relevant voice within a noisy background, is important for successful communication. Musicians have been reported to perform better than non-musicians on speech-in-noise tasks. This meta-analysis uses a multi-level design to assess the claim that musicians have superior speech-in-noise abilities compared to non-musicians. Across 31 studies and 62 effect sizes, the overall effect of musician status on speech-in-noise ability is significant, with a moderate effect size (g = 0.58), 95% CI [0.42, 0.74]. The overall effect of musician status was not moderated by within-study IQ equivalence, target stimulus, target contextual information, type of background noise, or age. We conclude that musicians show superior speech-in-noise abilities compared to non-musicians, not modified by age, IQ, or speech task parameters. These effects may reflect changes due to music training or predisposed auditory advantages that encourage musicianship.

Music and mood regulation during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Music listening can be an effective strategy for regulating affect, leading to positive well-being. However, it is unclear how differences in disposition and personality can impact music's affective benefits in response to acute and major real-world stressful events. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to study how music is used to cope with stress, loss, and unease across the world. During the first month of the spread of the COVID pandemic, we used an online survey to test if people from four different countries used music to manage their emotions during quarantine and if the functions of music depended on empathy, anxiety, depression, or country of residence. We found a positive relationship between the use of music listening for affect regulation and current well-being, particularly for participants from India. While people with stronger symptoms of depression and anxiety used music differently, the end result was still a positive change in affect. Our findings highlight the universality of music's affective potency and its ability to help people manage an unprecedented life stressor.

Neurophysiological improvements in speech-in-noise task after short-term choir training in older adults.

Perceiving speech in noise (SIN) is important for health and well-being and decreases with age. Musicians show improved speech-in-noise abilities and reduced age-related auditory decline, yet it is unclear whether short term music engagement has similar effects. In this randomized control trial we used a pre-post design to investigate whether a 12-week music intervention in adults aged 50-65 without prior music training and with subjective hearing loss improves well-being, speech-in-noise abilities, and auditory encoding and voluntary attention as indexed by auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) in a syllable-in-noise task, and later AEPs in an oddball task. Age and gender-matched adults were randomized to a choir or control group. Choir participants sang in a 2-hr ensemble with 1-hr home vocal training weekly; controls listened to a 3-hr playlist weekly, attended concerts, and socialized online with fellow participants. From pre- to post-intervention, no differences between groups were observed on quantitative measures of well-being or behavioral speech-in-noise abilities. In the choir group, but not the control group, changes in the N1 component were observed for the syllable-in-noise task, with increased N1 amplitude in the passive condition and decreased N1 latency in the active condition. During the oddball task, larger N1 amplitudes to the frequent standard stimuli were also observed in the choir but not control group from pre to post intervention. Findings have implications for the potential role of music training to improve sound encoding in individuals who are in the vulnerable age range and at risk of auditory decline.

Changes in auditory cortical thickness following music training in children: converging longitudinal and cross-sectional results.

Evidence is accumulating to suggest that music training is associated with structural brain differences in children and in adults. We used magnetic resonance imagining in two studies to investigate neuroanatomical correlates of music training in children. In study 1, we cross-sectionally compared a group of child musician (ages 9-11) matched to non-musicians and found that cortical thickness was greater in child musician in the posterior segment of the right-superior temporal gyrus (STG), an auditory association area that is involved in processing complex auditory stimuli, including pitch. We also found that thickness in the right posterior STG is related to music proficiency, however this relationship did not reach significance. In study 2, a longitudinal study, we investigated change in cortical thickness over a four-year period comparing a group of children involved in a systematic music training program with another group of children who did not have any music training. In this 2nd study we assessed both groups at the beginning of the study, prior to music training for the music group, and four years later. We found that children in the music group showed a strong trend of lower rate of cortical thinning in the right posterior superior temporal gyrus. Together, our results provide evidence that music training induces structural brain changes in school-age children and that these changes are predominantly pronounced in the right auditory association areas.

Dynamic intersubject neural synchronization reflects affective responses to sad music.

Psychological theories of emotion often highlight the dynamic quality of the affective experience, yet neuroimaging studies of affect have traditionally relied on static stimuli that lack ecological validity. Consequently, the brain regions that represent emotions and feelings as they unfold remain unclear. Recently, dynamic, model-free analytical techniques have been employed with naturalistic stimuli to better capture time-varying patterns of activity in the brain; yet, few studies have focused on relating these patterns to changes in subjective feelings. Here, we address this gap, using intersubject correlation and phase synchronization to assess how stimulus-driven changes in brain activity and connectivity are related to two aspects of emotional experience: emotional intensity and enjoyment. During fMRI scanning, healthy volunteers listened to a full-length piece of music selected to induce sadness. After scanning, participants listened to the piece twice while simultaneously rating the intensity of felt sadness or felt enjoyment. Activity in the auditory cortex, insula, and inferior frontal gyrus was significantly synchronized across participants. Synchronization in auditory, visual, and prefrontal regions was significantly greater in participants with higher measures of a subscale of trait empathy related to feeling emotions in response to music. When assessed dynamically, continuous enjoyment ratings positively predicted a moment-to-moment measure of intersubject synchronization in auditory, default mode, and striatal networks, as well as the orbitofrontal cortex, whereas sadness predicted intersubject synchronization in limbic and striatal networks. The results suggest that stimulus-driven patterns of neural communication in emotional processing and high-level cortical regions carry meaningful information with regards to our feeling in response to a naturalistic stimulus.

Effects of Music Training on Inhibitory Control and Associated Neural Networks in School-Aged Children: A Longitudinal Study.

Inhibitory control, the ability to suppress an immediate dominant response, has been shown to predict academic and career success, socioemotional wellbeing, wealth, and physical health. Learning to play a musical instrument engages various sensorimotor processes and draws on cognitive capacities including inhibition and task switching. While music training has been shown to benefit cognitive and language skills, its impact on inhibitory control remains inconclusive. As part of an ongoing 5-year longitudinal study, we investigated the effects of music training on the development of inhibitory control and its neural underpinnings with a population of children (starting at age 6) from underserved communities. Children involved in music were compared with children involved in sports and children not involved in any systematic after-school program. Inhibition was measured using a delayed gratification, flanker, and Color-Word Stroop task, which was performed both inside and outside of an MRI scanner. We established that there were no pre-existing differences in cognitive capacities among the groups at the onset. In the delayed gratification task, beginning after 3 years of training, children with music training chose a larger, delayed reward in place of a smaller, immediate reward compared to the control group. In the flanker task, children in the music group, significantly improved their accuracy after 3 and 4 years of training, whereas such improvement in the sport and control group did not reach significance. There were no differences among the groups on behavioral measures of Color-Word Stroop task at any time point. As for differences in brain function, we have previously reported that after 2 years, children with music training showed significantly greater bilateral activation in the pre-SMA/SMA, ACC, IFG, and insula during the Color-Word Stroop task compared to the control group, but not compared to the sports group (Sachs et al., 2017). However, after 4 years, we report here that differences in brain activity related to the Color-Word Stroop task between musicians and the other groups is only observed in the right IFG. The results suggest that systematic extracurricular programs, particularly music-based training, may accelerate development of inhibitory control and related brain networks earlier in childhood.

Echoing the emotions of others: empathy is related to how adults and children map emotion onto the body.

Empathy involves a mapping between the emotions observed in others and those experienced in one's self. However, effective social functioning also requires an ability to differentiate one's own emotional state from that of others. Here, we sought to examine the relationship between trait measures of empathy and the self-other distinction during emotional experience in both children and adults. We used a topographical self-report method (emBODY tool) in which participants drew on a silhouette of a human body where they felt an emotional response while watching film and music clips, as well as where they believed the character in the film or performer was feeling an emotion. We then assessed how the degree of overlap between the bodily representation of self versus other emotions related to trait empathy. In adults, the degree of overlap in the body maps was correlated with Perspective Taking. This relationship between cognitive empathy and degree of overlap between self and other was also found with children (8-11 years old), even though children performed worse on the task overall. The results suggest that mapping emotions observed or imagined in other's bodies onto our own is related to the development of empathy.

Reflections on music, affect, and sociality.

Music is an important facet of and practice in human cultures, significantly related to its capacity to induce a range of intense and complex emotions. Studying the psychological and neurophysiological responses to music allows us to examine and uncover the neural mechanisms underlying the emotional impact of music. We provide an overview of different aspects of current research on how music listening produces emotions and the corresponding feelings, and consider the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms. We conclude with evidence to suggest that musical training may influence the ability to recognize the emotions of others.

Music training and child development: a review of recent findings from a longitudinal study.

Evidence suggests that learning to play music enhances musical processing skills and benefits other cognitive abilities. Furthermore, studies of children and adults indicate that the brains of musicians and nonmusicians are different. It has not been determined, however, whether such differences result from pre-existing traits, musical training, or an interaction between the two. As part of an ongoing longitudinal study, we investigated the effects of music training on children's brain and cognitive development. The target group of children was compared with two groups of children, one involved in sports and another not enrolled in any systematic afterschool training. Two years after training, we observed that children in the music group had better performance than comparison groups in musically relevant auditory skills and showed related brain changes. For nonmusical skills, children with music training, compared with children without music or with sports training, showed stronger neural activation during a cognitive inhibition task in regions involved in response inhibition despite no differences in performance on behavioral measures of executive function. No such differences were found between music and sports groups. We conclude that music training induces brain and behavioral changes in children, and those changes are not attributable to pre-existing biological traits.

Decoding the neural signatures of emotions expressed through sound.

Effective social functioning relies in part on the ability to identify emotions from auditory stimuli and respond appropriately. Previous studies have uncovered brain regions engaged by the affective information conveyed by sound. But some of the acoustical properties of sounds that express certain emotions vary remarkably with the instrument used to produce them, for example the human voice or a violin. Do these brain regions respond in the same way to different emotions regardless of the sound source? To address this question, we had participants (N = 38, 20 females) listen to brief audio excerpts produced by the violin, clarinet, and human voice, each conveying one of three target emotions-happiness, sadness, and fear-while brain activity was measured with fMRI. We used multivoxel pattern analysis to test whether emotion-specific neural responses to the voice could predict emotion-specific neural responses to musical instruments and vice-versa. A whole-brain searchlight analysis revealed that patterns of activity within the primary and secondary auditory cortex, posterior insula, and parietal operculum were predictive of the affective content of sound both within and across instruments. Furthermore, classification accuracy within the anterior insula was correlated with behavioral measures of empathy. The findings suggest that these brain regions carry emotion-specific patterns that generalize across sounds with different acoustical properties. Also, individuals with greater empathic ability have more distinct neural patterns related to perceiving emotions. These results extend previous knowledge regarding how the human brain extracts emotional meaning from auditory stimuli and enables us to understand and connect with others effectively.

Childhood Music Training Induces Change in Micro and Macroscopic Brain Structure: Results from a Longitudinal Study.

Several studies comparing adult musicians and nonmusicians have shown that music training is associated with structural brain differences. It is not been established, however, whether such differences result from pre-existing biological traits, lengthy musical training, or an interaction of the two factors, or if comparable changes can be found in children undergoing music training. As part of an ongoing longitudinal study, we investigated the effects of music training on the developmental trajectory of children's brain structure, over two years, beginning at age 6. We compared these children with children of the same socio-economic background but either involved in sports training or not involved in any systematic after school training. We established at the onset that there were no pre-existing structural differences among the groups. Two years later we observed that children in the music group showed (1) a different rate of cortical thickness maturation between the right and left posterior superior temporal gyrus, and (2) higher fractional anisotropy in the corpus callosum, specifically in the crossing pathways connecting superior frontal, sensory, and motor segments. We conclude that music training induces macro and microstructural brain changes in school-age children, and that those changes are not attributable to pre-existing biological traits.

Increased engagement of the cognitive control network associated with music training in children during an fMRI Stroop task.

Playing a musical instrument engages various sensorimotor processes and draws on cognitive capacities collectively termed executive functions. However, while music training is believed to associated with enhancements in certain cognitive and language abilities, studies that have explored the specific relationship between music and executive function have yielded conflicting results. As part of an ongoing longitudinal study, we investigated the effects of music training on executive function using fMRI and several behavioral tasks, including the Color-Word Stroop task. Children involved in ongoing music training (N = 14, mean age = 8.67) were compared with two groups of comparable general cognitive abilities and socioeconomic status, one involved in sports ("sports" group, N = 13, mean age = 8.85) and another not involved in music or sports ("control" group, N = 17, mean age = 9.05). During the Color-Word Stroop task, children with music training showed significantly greater bilateral activation in the pre-SMA/SMA, ACC, IFG, and insula in trials that required cognitive control compared to the control group, despite no differences in performance on behavioral measures of executive function. No significant differences in brain activation or in task performance were found between the music and sports groups. The results suggest that systematic extracurricular training, particularly music-based training, is associated with changes in the cognitive control network in the brain even in the absence of changes in behavioral performance.

Neural correlates of accelerated auditory processing in children engaged in music training.

Several studies comparing adult musicians and non-musicians have shown that music training is associated with brain differences. It is unknown, however, whether these differences result from lengthy musical training, from pre-existing biological traits, or from social factors favoring musicality. As part of an ongoing 5-year longitudinal study, we investigated the effects of a music training program on the auditory development of children, over the course of two years, beginning at age 6-7. The training was group-based and inspired by El-Sistema. We compared the children in the music group with two comparison groups of children of the same socio-economic background, one involved in sports training, another not involved in any systematic training. Prior to participating, children who began training in music did not differ from those in the comparison groups in any of the assessed measures. After two years, we now observe that children in the music group, but not in the two comparison groups, show an enhanced ability to detect changes in tonal environment and an accelerated maturity of auditory processing as measured by cortical auditory evoked potentials to musical notes. Our results suggest that music training may result in stimulus specific brain changes in school aged children.

The Development of Musical Skills of Underprivileged Children Over the Course of 1 Year: A Study in the Context of an El Sistema-Inspired Program.

Developmental research in music has typically centered on the study of single musical skills (e.g., singing, listening) and has been conducted with middle class children who learn music in schools and conservatories. Information on the musical development of children from different social strata, who are enrolled in community-based music programs, remains elusive. This study examined the development of musical skills in underprivileged children who were attending an El Sistema-inspired program in Los Angeles. We investigated how children, predominantly of Latino ethnicity, developed musically with respect to the following musical skills - pitch and rhythmic discrimination, pitch matching, singing a song from memory, and rhythmic entrainment - over the course of 1 year. Results suggested that participation in an El Sistema-inspired program affects children's musical development in distinct ways; with pitch perception and production skills developing faster than rhythmic skills. Furthermore, children from the same ethnic and social background, who did not participate in the El Sistema-inspired music program, showed a decline in singing and pitch discrimination skills over the course of 1 year. Taken together, these results are consistent with the idea of musical development as a complex, spiraling and recursive process that is influenced by several factors including type of musical training. Implications for future research are outlined.

The pleasures of sad music: a systematic review.

Sadness is generally seen as a negative emotion, a response to distressing and adverse situations. In an aesthetic context, however, sadness is often associated with some degree of pleasure, as suggested by the ubiquity and popularity, throughout history, of music, plays, films and paintings with a sad content. Here, we focus on the fact that music regarded as sad is often experienced as pleasurable. Compared to other art forms, music has an exceptional ability to evoke a wide-range of feelings and is especially beguiling when it deals with grief and sorrow. Why is it, then, that while human survival depends on preventing painful experiences, mental pain often turns out to be explicitly sought through music? In this article we consider why and how sad music can become pleasurable. We offer a framework to account for how listening to sad music can lead to positive feelings, contending that this effect hinges on correcting an ongoing homeostatic imbalance. Sadness evoked by music is found pleasurable: (1) when it is perceived as non-threatening; (2) when it is aesthetically pleasing; and (3) when it produces psychological benefits such as mood regulation, and empathic feelings, caused, for example, by recollection of and reflection on past events. We also review neuroimaging studies related to music and emotion and focus on those that deal with sadness. Further exploration of the neural mechanisms through which stimuli that usually produce sadness can induce a positive affective state could help the development of effective therapies for disorders such as depression, in which the ability to experience pleasure is attenuated.

Cortical Activity during Perception of Musical Rhythm; Comparing Musicians and Non-musicians.

This study investigates the effects of musical training on brain activity to violations of rhythmic expectancies. We recorded behavioral and event-related brain potential (ERP) responses of musicians and non-musicians to discrepancies of rhythm between pairs of unfamiliar melodies based on Western classical rules. Rhythm deviations in the second melody involved prolongation of a note, thus creating a delay in the subsequent note; the duration of the second note was consequently shorter because the offset time was unchanged. In the first melody, on the other hand, the two notes were of equal duration. Musicians detected rhythm deviations significantly better than non-musicians. A negative auditory cortical potential in response to the omitted stimulus was observed at a latency of 150-250 ms from where the note should have been. There were no significant differences of amplitude or latency between musicians and non-musicians. In contrast, the N100 and P200 to the delayed note after the omission were significantly greater in amplitude in musicians compared to non-musicians especially in frontal and frontal-central areas. These findings indicate that long term musical training enhances brain cortical activities involved in processing temporal irregularities of unfamiliar melodies.

An equal start: absence of group differences in cognitive, social, and neural measures prior to music or sports training in children.

Several studies comparing adult musicians and non-musicians have provided compelling evidence for functional and anatomical differences in the brain systems engaged by musical training. It is not known, however, whether those differences result from long-term musical training or from pre-existing traits favoring musicality. In an attempt to begin addressing this question, we have launched a longitudinal investigation of the effects of childhood music training on cognitive, social and neural development. We compared a group of 6- to 7-year old children at the start of intense after-school musical training, with two groups of children: one involved in high intensity sports training but not musical training, another not involved in any systematic training. All children were tested with a comprehensive battery of cognitive, motor, musical, emotional, and social assessments and underwent magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography. Our first objective was to determine whether children who participate in musical training were different, prior to training, from children in the control groups in terms of cognitive, motor, musical, emotional, and social behavior measures as well as in structural and functional brain measures. Our second objective was to determine whether musical skills, as measured by a music perception assessment prior to training, correlates with emotional and social outcome measures that have been shown to be associated with musical training. We found no neural, cognitive, motor, emotional, or social differences among the three groups. In addition, there was no correlation between music perception skills and any of the social or emotional measures. These results provide a baseline for an ongoing longitudinal investigation of the effects of music training.