Music is a painkiller. It activates reward regions of the brain that overlap with pain relief centers, and it helps us regulate emotions that correspond to pain perception.
But scientists still struggle to pinpoint what gives music this effect. In previous studies, musical properties like tempo, energy and how relaxing or arousing a tune is don’t impact pain relief. In a new study, researchers argue that the relief could come from letting people pick songs.
The team designed an online experiment where participants either listened to music with low or high complexity. Additionally, they gave some the impression that participants could choose their song. Groups with the perceived choice listened to four, two-second musical segments and chose one to listen to in full. However, all the clips came from the same tune, so they all eventually listened to the same song.
The researchers teamed up with a composer to write ...
