Spectral Characteristics of EEG during Active Emotional Musical Performance

Abstract

The research on neural correlates of intentional emotion communication by the music performer is still limited. In this study, we attempted to evaluate EEG patterns recorded from musicians who were instructed to perform a simple piano score while manipulating their manner of play to express specific contrasting emotions and self-rate the emotion they reflected on the scales of arousal and valence. In the emotional playing task, participants were instructed to improvise variations in a manner by which the targeted emotion is communicated. In contrast, in the neutral playing task, participants were asked to play the same piece precisely as written to obtain data for control over general patterns of motor and sensory activation during playing. The spectral analysis of the signal was applied as an initial step to be able to connect findings to the wider field of music-emotion research. The experimental contrast of emotional playing vs. neutral playing was employed to probe brain activity patterns differentially involved in distinct emotional states. The tasks of emotional and neutral playing differed considerably with respect to the state of intended-to-transfer emotion arousal and valence levels. The EEG activity differences were observed between distressed/excited and neutral/depressed/relaxed playing.

Karawitans’ musician brain adaptation: standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography study

“…Their research involved having musicians perform a simple piano piece while adjusting their manner of play to transmit opposing feelings, and self-rating the emotion portrayed on arousal and valence scales. In both distressed and comfortable playing, EEG activity differed [40]. Electroencephalograms (EEGs) are widely used to record brain responses to brief, repeating stimuli.…”

Assessment of Different Feature Extraction Methods for Discriminating Expressed Emotions during Music Performance towards BCMI Application

“…It has been shown that brain activity during the perception of emotions induced by music-listening differs from that involved in the creative expression of emotion through music performance [ 24 ]; moreover, it is possible that music performers experience different emotions than what they are trying to express through the performance [ 25 ]. In our previous works [ 11 , 12 ], we demonstrated that both power and effective connectivity patterns differ when professional musicians are instructed to play distressed, excited, depressed, relaxed, or neutrally labeled music pieces.…”

“…Numerous studies have focused on spectral power measurements as a tool to reveal the brain activity behind emotional experiences elicited by listening to music. Power changes in different frequency bands and over multiple brain areas have been reported to be related to changes in arousal and valence corresponding to different emotional states [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]. However, a large information flow between different cortical areas occurs during emotional music processing [ 13 ], and this should be considered when comparing emotions at a neurophysiological level.…”

The Creative Drummer: An EEG-Based Pilot Study on the Correlates of Emotions and Creative Drum Playing

“…The authors contrasted emotional playing with neutral playing to detect patterns of motor and sensory activation related to the emotional aspects of the performance. Pousson et al [56] recorded EEG activity from musicians who were instructed to perform a simple piano score in an emotional way and in a neutral way. In the emotional playing task, participants were instructed to improvise variations in a manner by which the targeted emotion was communicated, while in the neutral playing task, participants were asked to play the same piece precisely as written in the score.…”