Why is music like friendship for some people?

We all listen to it, we enjoy it, we return to it again and again, we talk about it, we share it with others, but it is not clear why we love it so much.

The reason we love music is for most simple. Because she did we love 'just'. Music has always had a very important role for human beings. Each society has created its own special musical tradition, and many studies have found why music is so important to people. Music has an emotional and personal meaning, as it is basically a type of 'protolanguage' that we used to communicate before we developed language as a specific type of communication. But the real reason is not hidden here.

In a study of the neurophysiological effects of empathy in music cognition they note that For 20 percent of respondents, music represents a friend and they perceive it as a company. It exists in the brain 'empathy circle' and those people who consider themselves empathetic are extremely sensitive to social stimuli, other people's moods and relationships. And when it comes to music, it seems so music also has a physical effect on their brains.

In the study they studied 20 students, which are solved tests on the topic of empathy and how they perceive different situations based on empathy. They then monitored everyone's brain activity while they listened to different genres of music, including known and unknown tracks. When music played that highly empathic people are familiar with, they their brains showed two fundamental differences compared to the brains of subjects with lower empathy. First time: they showed more activity in the dorsal striatum, which is part of the brain's reward system and gives us a sense of satisfaction. Second time: parts of their brains associated with social circuits were activated.

The researchers found two fundamental differences.

And the result of this analysis shows that it is brain activity of empathic people, when they listen to a familiar song, the same as then, when they meet their friends, so scientists believe it is empathy as a muscle that can be strengthened, just as friendship can be strengthened.

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