Music & Emotion
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Music reward and personality
Article: Montag, C., Reuter, M., & Axmacher, N. (2011). How one’s favorite song activates the reward circuitry of the brain: Personality matters! Behavioural Brain Research, 225, 511-514. Retrieved October 15, 2011, from Scholars Portal Journals This new journal article makes an interesting contribution to recent findings regarding music and reward in the brain. We know that the brain’s core reward system reacts strongly to our very favourite pieces of music – now it appears that this effect can be modulated by our personality. In January of this year I wrote a blog about an article by Valorie Salimpoor and colleagues, which examined the effect of listening to a favourite piece…
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Musical emotions – unique and complex
I often think very fondly of my time as a PhD student within the Psychology Department of the University of York. I had the best supervisors, the most supportive and caring roommates, and the most stimulating of research environments. In fact, I was jolly spoilt now I think about it! And all this came flooding back to me last week when we had a visiting speaker arrive from my Alma Mater. Dr Marcel Zentner obtained his PhD from the University of Zurich in 1996. He then moved to Harvard University to carry out postdoctoral research for two years before joining the Emotion research group at the University of Geneva. There…
