Music Perception VOLUME 26, ISSUE 5, PP. 489–504, ISSN 0730-7829, ELECTRONIC ISSN 1533-8312 © 2009 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. ALL
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Musical Experience and the Mirror Neuron System 489
KATIE OVERY
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
ISTVAN MOLNAR-SZAKACS
University of California, Los Angeles
THE DISCOVERY OF INDIVIDUAL “MIRROR NEURONS”
in the macaque brain that fire both when an action is
executed and when that same action is observed or
heard, and of a homologous system in humans, is lead-
ing to an extraordinary conceptual shift in our under-
standing of perception-action mechanisms, human
communication, and empathy. In a recent model of
emotional responses to music (Molnar-Szakacs &
Overy, 2006), we proposed that music is perceived not
only as an auditory signal, but also as intentional, hier-
archically organized sequences of expressive motor
acts behind the signal; and that the human mirror neu-
ron system allows for corepresentation and sharing of
a musical experience between agent and listener. Here,
we expand upon this model of Shared Affective
Motion Experience (SAME) and discuss its implica-
tions for music therapy and special education. We hypoth-
esize that imitation, synchronization, and shared
experience may be key elements of successful work in
these areas.
Received September 26, 2008, accepted March 15, 2009.
Key words: emotion, insula, imitation, therapy, motor
THE COMPLEX AND POWERFUL NATURE of musicalexperience is both mysterious and fascinating.How is it that a stream of abstract, nonreferential
patterns of sound can be so enjoyable and can have
such profound and varied effects in our lives? How can
the simple auditory parameters of pitch, timbre, stress,
and timing convey such rich information? From lulla-
bies and work songs to advertising jingles and piano
concertos, music does not appear to be limited to a par-
ticular educational, social, cultural, or even biological
function. Within just a few seconds of hearing music,
we can place ourselves in a church or in a jazz bar, we
can be in India or Scotland, we can remember a favorite
movie or an old romance, we can feel uplifted, ener-
gized, or more relaxed. We even use music to remember
the alphabet, to affect consumer spending, and to facil-
itate therapy. What is it about music that allows for
such meaningful and varied behaviors?
Music is clearly not just a passive, auditory stimulus,
it is an engaging, multisensory, social activity. All musi-
cal sounds are created by movements of the human
body (singing, clapping, hitting, blowing, plucking)1
and in turn seem to encourage other bodies to move
(clapping, tapping, marching, dancing). Music-making
usually occurs in groups (dyads, circles, ensembles),
and involves the synchronization of physical actions
with extraordinary temporal accuracy and flexibility.
Such physical, social, synchronized interactions involve
imitation, learning, shared understanding, and predic-
tion, and can encourage eye contact, smiling, laughter,
and relationship building, while also allowing for lead-
ership, competition, and individual expression—all
powerful social learning experiences. Even since the
advent of recorded music, musical preferences are
strongly linked with social groups, particularly during
teenage years of social maturity and identity formation
(De Nora, 2000). And yet, music is also genuinely and
deeply appreciated as a solitary experience, from
singing to oneself to the extraordinary cultural advent
of the iPod.
Examining this rich variety of musical behavior
presents experimental challenges, not least because
the controlled isolation of individual variables of
interest (e.g., pitch memory, beat detection, emotional
response) requires the reduction or even elimination
of the complexity of real-world musical experience.
This is particularly true in neuroimaging research,
BEING TOGETHER IN TIME: MUSICAL EXPERIENCE
AND THE MIRROR NEURON SYSTEM
1The recent advent of computer-generated music is a special case.
Much electronic music emulates humanly created sounds, but not
all. Interestingly, the apparent aesthetic difficulties presented by “dis-
embodied” musical sounds are currently being discussed in the field
of electro-acoustic composition (Dow, 2008).
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