Groove on the Brain

Abstract

A unique feature of music is its potential to make us want to move our feet and bodies to the rhythm of the musical beat. Even though the ability to synchronize our movements to music feels as a completely natural music-related behavior to most humans (but see [1, 2] for rare cases of so-called beat-deafness in humans) this ability is rarely observed in animals [3], and usually depends on specific training regimes [4]. Our brains structure the musical beat into strong and weak beats even without any such information present in the auditory stimulus [5]. Furthermore, the tendency to move to a regular beat, with isochronous intervals, may persist even if the music that we listen to emphasizes musical events that lies between these beats as for syncopated rhythms [6] or in the case of polyrhythm [7, 8]. This indicates a cognitive discrepancy between what is heard – the rhythm - and the brain’s internal structuring of the beat – which in musicology is termed the meter. In the present paper, I shall argue that this discrepancy: (1) is related to prediction as a fundamental principle of brain processing, (2) gives rise to prediction error between lower - possibly sensory - and higher levels – possibly motor networks - in the hierarchical organized brain, and that (3) perception, learning and our inclination to move to the beat depends on the right balance between predictability and surprise. This predictive coding understanding of the brain mechanisms involved in movement related musical behavior may help us understand brain processes related to aesthetic experiences in general and in designing strategies for clinical intervention for patients with movement disorders.