This research investigated the cognitive processes involved in classifying the cultural origin of music and how various musical features influence these processes. One hundred White-European (Western) listeners from the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia listened to 48 ten-second music excerpts, comprising Western classical and Chinese traditional bowed-string music conveying happiness, sadness, calmness, and agitation. Western listeners classified each music excerpt as either Western or Chinese in a forced-choice task and rated their familiarity with the music. Measures of accuracy, sensitivity, response bias, and response time were obtained, while musical features were extracted for subsequent regression analyses. Listeners were more accurate in classifying Western music than Chinese music but responded more quickly when attempting to classify Chinese music than Western music. Listeners also demonstrated high sensitivity in distinguishing between Western and Chinese music, but with a liberal response bias to classify music as Western. Listeners exhibited reduced ability to distinguish between Western and Chinese music (low sensitivity) that was happy or agitated, with a strong response bias to classify such excerpts as Western. Musical features and culture-specific factors significantly predicted classification accuracy and response time for both Western and Chinese music. We discuss the roles of decision-making processes in the cultural classification of music, proposing that both heuristic (automatic) and reflective processes are involved. We also discuss potential mechanisms through which the emotional connotations of music impact upon its perceived cultural origins.

Creative arts and physical activities can confer cognitive and psychosocial benefits for people of all ages, including older adults. Dance is a creative and physical art form that involves improvised or choreographed movements to music and rhythmic patterns. While research shows growing evidence for health and wellbeing benefits from dance interventions for older adults, little is known about the cognitive and psychosocial advantages of having long-term expertise in dance. This scoping review identified and synthesised the existing research on the influence of sustained engagement in dance or elite-level dance skills on cognitive function and psychosocial wellbeing in older adulthood. Ten studies were included for analysis. The findings of this review show the limited research on older adults with high levels of dance expertise and may serve as a stimulus for further research to understand how maintaining different creative arts and physical activities across the lifespan supports healthy ageing.

Musical expertise is often associated with enhanced cognitive abilities, underpinned by neural mechanisms unique to musicians. Research has provided evidence of associations between musical training and functional aspects of cognition. However, the neural changes associated with musical expertise, particularly in relation to working memory, remain poorly understood. To address this gap, we conducted an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis to examine differences in functional neural activity between musicians and non-musicians during working memory tasks. Meta-analytic connectivity modeling (MACM) was conducted to explore broader networks of co-activation associated with regions of interest identified during the initial ALE meta-analysis. Nine functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, including 228 participants (113 musicians and 115 non-musicians), were included in the final analysis. Musicians exhibited hyperactivations in the right medial frontal gyrus and hypoactivations across the right middle occipital gyrus, the right precentral gyrus, the left inferior parietal lobule, the right claustrum, and the left cerebellum during working memory tasks. MACM revealed distributed networks of co-activation with links to various cognitive functions across regions of interest uncovered by the ALE analysis. Based on these findings, we propose that distinct functional networks and enhanced neural efficiency in musicians may support working memory performance across the lifespan. This article is categorized under: Neuroscience > Cognition Psychology > Development and Aging Cognitive Biology > Cognitive Development.

The evolution of music, speech, and prosociality has been debated since before Darwin. The social bonding hypothesis proposes that these phenomena may be interlinked: musicality may have facilitated the evolution of social bonding beyond the possibilities of spoken language. Although dozens of experimental studies have argued that synchronised rhythms can promote bonding, methodological issues including publication bias, sample bias, experimenter effects, and appropriateness of experimental controls make it unclear whether synchronous singing reliably and generally enhances bonding relative to speaking. Following a peer-reviewed Stage 1 Registered Report protocol, we collected data from randomized controlled in-person experiments with 1,017 participants singing and speaking in groups of 5-10 in 30 languages spanning 10 language families and 43 global sites in 32 countries (N = 901 participants after planned quality control exclusions). Our results strongly supported all three of our pre-registered confirmatory hypotheses (all Bayes Factors > 30): (i) synchronised group singing enhances self-reported social bonding (20.9% mean increase), a significantly greater increase than (ii) group conversation (12.9% increase) or (iii) synchronous recitation (15.2% increase). Exploratory analyses suggested that singing’s bonding effects are stronger in non-Western than in Western contexts, perceived synchronisation and enjoyment are key predictors of social bonding, and results are not artefacts of expectancy or group size. Group singing may serve as a better bonding activity than speaking activities in settings such as school or workplace orientation events. More broadly, our study provides strong cross-cultural empirical evidence that music is not merely “auditory cheesecake” that is “useless” compared with language (Pinker, 1997). All forms of vocal communication increase social bonding, but group singing bonds us together over 1.5 times more on average than spoken conversation does.

Music is widely used in exercise as a dissociative strategy to divert attention from sensations of fatigue. During high-intensity exercise, however, physiological perceptions may dominate attention, making it difficult for external stimuli like music to capture focus. Two experiments examined the impact of directing attention to music or body movements while running with asynchronous music. In Experiment 1, a within-subjects 2 (intensity: 70% or 80% heart rate reserve) x 2 (focus: music-focus or body-focus) design was employed. Focusing on music resulted in higher affective valence and remembered pleasure than focusing on body movements. No main effects of intensity level were observed. In Experiment 2, bilateral prefrontal oxygenation was measured using near-infrared spectroscopy during three conditions at 80%HRR: exercise with music and focus on music (music-focus), exercise with music and focus on body movements (body-focus), and exercise without music and focus on body movements (control). Compared to the control condition, the body-focus condition decreased prefrontal activation in the left hemisphere, suggesting that the presence of music reduced cognitive demands associated with regulating negative feelings during exertion. This reduction was not observed for the music-focus condition, possibly because actively processing the rhythmic structure of asynchronous music imposed additional cognitive demands. However, a mini-meta-analysis across both experiments revealed that focusing on music improved affective valence and remembered pleasure. There were also medium-sized positive correlations between perceived attention to music and affective responses. These findings suggest that attention to music is associated with positive affect even in high-intensity exercise where interoceptive information is dominant.

Synchronizing movements to music enhances exercise performance and enjoyment, yet its short-term effects on attention and cognition remain underexplored. This study examined the influence of synchronous music, asynchronous music, and a no-music control condition on emotional responses, perceived exertion, attentional focus, and executive function during moderate-intensity cycling. Twenty-seven healthy young adults completed three cycling sessions under different conditions in a within-subjects design. Measures included perceived valence, perceived activation, ratings of perceived exertion (RPE), state attention, remembered pleasure, intrinsic motivation, Flanker Squared Task (FST) performance, and changes in cerebral oxygenation in the left prefrontal cortex (PFC) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Compared to the asynchronous and control conditions, synchronizing to music during exercise significantly enhanced perceived valence, perceived activation, intrinsic motivation, and external focus while reducing RPE. When the central arrow in the target stimulus conflicted with the surrounding flanker arrows in the FST (i.e., stimulus incongruent trials), synchronization tended to improve performance, an effect fully mediated by reductions in RPE. External focus during exercise was positively associated with FST performance, partially mediated by reduced cerebral oxygenation in the PFC. The findings suggest that synchronizing movements to music enhances the psychological experience of exercise and may support executive function by increasing external focus and reducing RPE.

The link between music and emotion, as articulated from a cognitive perspective, assumes that music carries expressive cues that convey or induce emotional responses in listeners. Studies following this paradigm often investigate how responses converge or diverge among individuals, social groups, and cultures. However, results vary from one study to another, with few satisfactory explanations as to why. We contend that emotional responses to music are adaptable, arising from a conscious and subconscious continuous processing of the overarching situational context and its interaction with psychophysical, cultural, and personal variables. By integrating theory and data from multiple domains, we present the Framework for Adaptable Musical Emotions (FAME), which explains emotional responses to music through the mechanism of emotion adaptability on a continuum of evolutionary to fleeting time frames. FAME represents an advance on models of music and emotion that primarily focus on decoding emotional signals from the sounded music. FAME provides the first basis for predictions of emotional adaptability and situational context and may explain previously observed variability in emotional responses to music, guiding future research, and novel understandings.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) often results in impairments to executive functioning. Self-instruction (SI) and music-based interventions have both independently shown promise in improving cognitive and executive functioning, however, they have not been studied in combination. This study explores the feasibility and potential benefits of combining rhythmic music-based intervention and SI for individuals with a history of TBI experiencing executive dysfunction. Four male participants (aged 38-64) with severe TBI participated in a twice-weekly intervention combining rhythmic music-based intervention and SI over five weeks. Participants were assessed pre- and post-intervention using the BRIEF-A for executive functioning, along with secondary measures, the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-42), Seashore Rhythm Test (SRT), Letter Number Task (LNT), and Quality of Life After Brain Injury Scale (QOLIBRI). Feasibility was assessed through a questionnaire. Three of four participants reported significant improvements in behaviour regulation, and three of four informants reported observing significant improvements in participants' overall executive functioning. These findings indicate that combining rhythmic music-based intervention with SI is a feasible, well-tolerated, and potentially effective intervention for improving executive functioning in individuals with TBI. Future randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm the efficacy of the intervention.

Objectives: Emotion perception in music is shaped by cultural background, yet the extent of cultural biases remains unclear. This study investigated how Western listeners perceive emotion in music across cultures, focusing on the accuracy and intensity of emotion recognition and the musical features that predict emotion perception. Methods: White-European (Western) listeners from the UK, USA, New Zealand, and Australia (N = 100) listened to 48 ten-second excerpts of Western classical and Chinese traditional bowed-string music that were validated by experts to convey happiness, sadness, agitation, and calmness. After each excerpt, participants rated the familiarity, enjoyment, and perceived intensity of the four emotions. Musical features were computationally extracted for regression analyses. Results: Western listeners experienced Western classical music as more familiar and enjoyable than Chinese music. Happiness and sadness were recognised more accurately in Western classical music, whereas agitation was more accurately identified in Chinese music. The perceived intensity of happiness and sadness was greater for Western classical music; conversely, the perceived intensity of agitation was greater for Chinese music. Furthermore, emotion perception was influenced by both culture-shared (e.g., timbre) and culture-specific (e.g., dynamics) musical features. Conclusions: Our findings reveal clear cultural biases in the way individuals perceive and classify music, highlighting how these biases are shaped by the interaction between cultural familiarity and the emotional and structural qualities of the music. We discuss the possibility that purposeful engagement with music from diverse cultural traditions—especially in educational and therapeutic settings—may cultivate intercultural empathy and an appreciation of the values and aesthetics of other cultures.

Chanting is a universal practice with deep ethnocultural roots. More recently, chanting has become popular on online platforms and meditation apps which have extended chanting practices beyond their original cultural, sacred, and healing traditions. The aim of the current study was to determine if online chanting meditation promotes altered states of consciousness and psychosocial benefits when compared to a narrative listening control and whether there are different effects of online chanting for experienced and novice meditators. Experienced and novice chanters completed a 10-minute online chanting or listening activity prior to measures of ego dissolution, mystical states, mindfulness, social connection and anxiety. Differences between chanting conditions (chanting vs. listening) and experience (experienced vs. novice meditators) were examined using 2 × 2 ANOVAs and ANCOVAs, controlling for spirituality. Results showed ego dissolution and mystical state scores were higher in the chanting compared to the listening condition for experienced chanters, but not for novices. Spirituality was also a significant covariate for ego dissolution, mystical experience and mindfulness, suggesting these states of consciousness were partially dependent on spiritual or religious beliefs. This research shows that an online chanting intervention can lead to marked altered states of consciousness for individuals with prior experience with chanting. The findings may inform future design and development of contemplative activities.

Individuals with breathing difficulties such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and long COVID often experience mood disturbances and isolation. Previous research on musical care has considered the potential of music and singing to support people with respiratory symptoms, but the possible benefits of group chanting have not been explored. Group chanting is a global practice involving controlled breathing through rhythmic vocalizations, but unlike singing or music participation it requires no musical skill. This study examined if 10 minutes of vocal chanting improves psychological wellbeing, social wellbeing, and breathing function. Participants were 41 Australian adults with dysfunctional breathing and 25 with normal respiratory function, who were randomly allocated to group chanting ( n = 32) or group guided relaxation ( n = 34), with measures taken before and after. Qualitative interviews were undertaken to support the findings and understand the phenomenology of chanting. The results showed that chanting increased positive mood more than relaxation. Both chanting and relaxation improved flourishing and social connection, while decreasing negative mood, with greater and more consistent benefits observed for participants with dysfunctional breathing. Non-attachment, autonomy, and breathing function improved similarly for all participants. These findings suggest that chanting and relaxation may provide psychosocial and breathing-related benefits, particularly for those with dysfunctional breathing. Despite reduced statistical power to detect group differences, the current findings offer promising evidence that warrants replication in future studies.

Biases and stereotypes shape how people interpret unfamiliar cultural expressions, with implications for intergroup understanding and media portrayals of non-Western societies. In this study, Western listeners (N = 50, predominantly White-Europeans) familiar with Western classical music, but not Middle Eastern or Indian traditional music, rated how well 24 emotionally neutral musical excerpts from these traditions fit as accompaniments to frightening video scenes. Middle Eastern music was rated as significantly more suitable for scary scenes than either Western or Indian music, suggesting a culturally specific fear bias. This effect was partly explained by timbral features associated with threat perception. The findings provide novel evidence that unfamiliar foreign music can trigger threat-detection responses and activate negative cultural stereotypes, potentially reinforcing intergroup biases. We discuss the potential of cross-cultural music engagement to reduce implicit prejudice.

How cross-culturally consistent and general are relationships between song and speech? Ozaki et al. (2024) analysed singing and speaking from 75 individuals speaking 55 languages, concluding that songs are “slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech”. However, the degree to which their findings would generalise to other speakers of their languages remains unclear. We will test the replicability of Ozaki et al.'s (2024) findings using audio recordings of matched singing and conversational speech from 15-30 individuals per language in 26 sites around the world, collected as part of a broader study of global song/speech relationships (Savage et al., 2025 [In Principle Accepted]). For each site, we will replicate Ozaki et al.'s (2024) analyses for their three key features hypothesised to differ between song and speech: 1) pitch height (f0); 2) temporal rate (inter-onset interval of acoustic units [e.g., syllables/moras/notes]); 3) pitch stability (−|Δf0|). This Programmatic Registered Report will allow us to test the replicability and generalizability of Ozaki et al.'s (2024) original findings in a rigorous and equitable manner by enabling each local research team to lead its own separate first-authored Stage 2 Registered Report based on a single shared Stage 1 protocol. This will allow us to test the replicability of Ozaki et al.'s (2024) original findings across diverse languages while also giving each team the flexibility to pursue their own exploratory analyses in directions most relevant to their local context. Regardless of results, our multi-site large-scale replications will enhance our understanding of cross-cultural relationships between music and language and provide a template for equitable global collaboration.

Humans instinctively adapt their speech dynamics based on their communication partner. Despite the significant developmental differences between infants and older adults, research on vocal communication directed toward older adults has primarily documented broad adjustments that enhance comprehension, often interpreted as mirroring baby talk. This study examined spoken, sung, and whispered vocalizations produced by young native English-speaking female adults directed at infants, older adults, and young adults. Three separate groups of speakers produced either spoken (19 speakers), sung (21 speakers), or whispered (19 speakers) vocalizations. Results showed distinct acoustic patterns in vocalizations directed toward older adults across all three vocal modes. Then, three separate groups of young native English-speaking listeners evaluated either the spoken (185 listeners), sung (194 listeners), or whispered (171 listeners) vocalizations and accurately identified the intended audience. These findings challenged the assumption of uniform communication strategies for infants and older adults. Furthermore, older adult-directed vocalizations were associated more with infants than with young adults. We propose that an assessment of the cognitive, hearing, emotional, and attentional needs and abilities of the audience is crucial in shaping communication dynamics, leading to distinct vocal dynamics for infants and older adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Chanting is an ancient and globally widespread ritualistic practice involving rhythmic vocalization or repetition of words, phrases, or sounds. While previous reviews have considered the neurophysiological impact of meditation and spirituality, chanting has received limited systematic investigation. This review aimed to identify and synthesize neural correlates of chanting, examine methodological variability, and determine consistent neural patterns across chanting studies and styles. PsycINFO and PubMed databases were systematically searched for neuroimaging studies including chanting, mantra, and repetitive prayer. Articles published through October 8, 2024, were included, yielding 899 initial articles. After applying exclusion criteria, 24 studies were included. Study quality was assessed using the adapted Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) criteria. Findings demonstrate that chanting activates brain regions involved in attention and emotional regulation, including the prefrontal cortex, insula, and cingulate gyrus. Deactivation of default mode network (DMN) areas, particularly the posterior cingulate cortex and hippocampus, was also observed, suggesting reduced self-referential thought. Electroencephalography (EEG) studies revealed increased theta activity, indicating enhanced relaxation during chanting. Although heterogeneity in sample sizes, imaging modalities, participant characteristics, and control conditions preclude a formal meta-analysis, the findings lay a foundation for advancing research into the neural mechanisms of chanting. Chanting engages neural networks associated with attention and emotional regulation. The consistent pattern of prefrontal activation and DMN deactivation suggests mechanisms similar to other contemplative practices.

Aerobic exercise improves cognitive functions in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), while dance, combining music and synchronized movement, offers additional cognitive benefits. Despite music's potential role in enhancing cognitive outcomes, most research on aerobic exercise has not considered the impact of accompanying music. This review compared the effectiveness of aerobic exercise with music, aerobic exercise without music, and dance on cognitive function in adults with MCI. A total of 38 papers from 25 randomized controlled trials (N = 2048) were synthesized. The multilevel meta-analyses showed that compared to the control group, global cognition was improved by aerobic exercise with music (g = 1.2 [0.47, 1.94]), aerobic exercise without music (g = 0.48 [0.18, 0.79]), and dance (g = 0.55 [0.13, 0.96]). Dance also enhanced short-term memory (g = 0.41 [0.24, 0.59]), learning efficiency (g = 0.39 [0.14, 0.65]), and retrieval fluency (g = 0.7 [0.19, 1.22]). Bayesian network meta-analyses indicated that aerobic exercise with music had the highest probability of being the most effective for improving global cognition, executive function, and processing speed. Dance was likely to be the most beneficial for enhancing short-term memory, learning efficiency, and retrieval fluency. This study supports that incorporating music in exercise amplifies the cognitive benefits beyond exercise alone for individuals with MCI. The “Music Exercise Synergy Model” is proposed to explain the cognitive benefits of combining music with exercise. Dance strategically uses music for coordination, offering psychological, social, cognitive, and neurobiological benefits and contributing to the observed enhancements in memory functions.

The experience of pitch relations is known to be in fluenced by timbral brightness, Because phonemes naturally v ary in their extent of brightness, we wondered whether the experi- ence of pitch relations in vocal music was influenc ed by phoneme content. Three-tone sequences were synthesi zed so as to vary with regard to both pitch and phoneme con- tent. Perceived interval size was found to vary as a function of the interaction between normalized spectral cent roid and pitch contour, with larger pitch distances asso ciated with sequences possessing congruent contours. Propo sals concerning the underlying mechanism and various imp lica- tions of the findings are discussed.

Listening to sung words rather than spoken words can facilitate word learning and memory in adults and school-aged children. To explore the development of this effect in young children, this study examined word learning (assessed as forming word-object associations) in 1- to 2-year olds and 3- to 4-year olds, and word long-term memory (LTM) in 4- to 5-year olds several days after the initial learning. In an intermodal preferential looking paradigm, children were taught a pair of words utilising adult-directed speech (ADS) and a pair of sung words. Word learning performance was better with sung words than with ADS words in 1- to 2-year olds (Experiments 1a and 1b), 3- to 4-year olds (Experiment 1a), and 4- to 5-year olds (Experiment 2b), revealing a benefit of song in word learning in all age ranges recruited. We also examined whether children successfully learned the words by comparing their performance against chance. The 1- to 2-year olds only learned sung words, but the 3- to 4-year olds learned both sung and ADS words, suggesting that the reliance on music features in word learning observed at ages 1-2 decreased with age. Furthermore, song facilitated the word mapping-recognition processes. Results on children's LTM performance showed that the 4- to 5-year olds' LTM performance did not differ between sung and ADS words. However, the 4- to 5-year olds reliably recalled sung words but not spoken words. The reliable LTM of sung words arose from hearing sung words during the initial learning rather than at test. Finally, the benefit of song on word learning and the reliable LTM of sung words observed at ages 3-5 cannot be explained as an attentional effect.

Fans of music containing violent themes can experience positive affective, social, and well-being benefits from engagement with music. However, there is a gap in understanding why people are attracted to such music in the first place, as violently themed music is often considered offensive, disturbing, and repulsive by many nonfans. Recent research has found that morbid curiosity, a fascination with death and threatening situations and phenomena, is associated with the attraction to novel excerpts of music containing violent themes. The present study qualitatively investigated reasons that a sample of predominantly nonfans of violently themed music (N = 96) show attraction to such music, focusing on the role of morbid curiosity. Participants reported the reasons behind their curiosity about 32 novel excerpts of violently themed metal or rap music, containing either music and lyrics or lyrics only. Responses were analyzed using a combination of inductive and deductive content analysis. Results revealed that morbid curiosity emerged as a key theme in the responses to violently themed metal and rap excerpts, while a general desire for more information and context and an appreciation for the music and lyrical elements of the music also emerged as key themes. Findings support the notion that morbid curiosity is a key element to the attraction to violently themed music and may support the development of enjoyment and fandom. We discuss implications for the neurological and evolutionary basis of morbid curiosity and its potential influence on experiencing adaptive outcomes through violently themed music.