Schedule of Events | Symposia

Exploring the neural mechanisms of preference for sad music

Poster Session D - Monday, March 31, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Momoyo Tsuchiya¹ (tsuchiya.momoyo.t2@dc.tohoku.ac.jp), Ayumi Takemoto¹, Jeyoon Choi¹, Motoaki Sugiura¹; ¹Tohoku University, Japan

Music has long been a part of our lives, shaping our culture, history, and relationships. One reason for this is that music can evoke emotions. Music can elicit both positive and negative emotions, such as sadness. Some people love sad music even though it can elicit sadness. Previous research suggested that listening to sad music makes people feel not only sadness, but also pleasure and aesthetic feelings. However, it remains unclear how those who prefer sad music perceive and enjoy sad music, especially in terms of sadness and aesthetic emotions. This study aimed to identify the neural correlates of listening to sad music in people who prefer sad music using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Forty-two healthy individuals participated in this study. Participants listened to fourteen sad music and fourteen non-sad music for twenty seconds randomly. Meanwhile, brain activity was collected by fMRI. After that, they completed a questionnaire to assess the extent to which each stimulus applied to each of certain emotional categories and to measure personality traits, such as the degree of preference for sad music (SMP). Results of whole-brain analysis revealed that a significant positive correlation between the right insula activation and SMP scores in sad music. In region of interest analysis, the bilateral ventral striatum activity, which is associated with reward, was positively correlated with SMP scores in sad music. We interpreted that the brain activity in the insula in people who prefer sad music while listening to sad music reflected their experience of aesthetic emotions.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Other