| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Affective Resonance | The process by which a person mirrors or ‘vibes’ with the emotional state of another person or, in this case, a piece of music. |
| Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (dlPFC) | An area of the brain associated with complex cognitive functions including executive function and social decision-making. |
| Embodied Simulation | The theory that we understand others’ experiences by internally ‘re-enacting’ their actions and emotions within our own neural systems. |
| Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) | A brain region involved in language processing and the mirroring of others’ intentions and emotions. |
| Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) | A commonly used psychometric scale designed to measure various dimensions of empathy including perspective-taking and personal distress. |
| Medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC) | A key region for social processing that helps us think about our own traits and the traits of other people. |
| Mirror Neuron System (MNS) | A group of brain cells that fire both when you perform an action and when you observe someone else performing that same action. |
| Posterior Cingulate Cortex (PCC) | A central node of the brain often active during self-reflection and tasks related to social and emotional processing. |
| Premotor Cortex | An area of the motor cortex involved in planning and executing movements; in music listening, it is thought to simulate the ‘actions’ of the performer. |
| Social Cognition | The mental processes involved in perceiving, remembering, and thinking about other people and social interactions. |
| Superior Temporal Gyrus (STG) | A brain region primarily responsible for processing sound, which also plays a role in social perception and understanding vocal emotions. |
| Temporoparietal Junction (TPJ) | The social hub of the brain responsible for Theory of Mind—the ability to realize that others have thoughts and states different from your own. |
| Theory of Mind (ToM) | The capacity to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires—to oneself and others, and to understand that others have different perspectives. |
| Trait Empathy | A stable personality characteristic reflecting a person’s general ability to understand and share the feelings of others. |
| Ventral Striatum | A key part of the brain’s reward system that processes pleasure and releases dopamine in response to rewarding stimuli. |
The Empathetic Ear
Music
Empathy
Neuroscience
fMRI
Music is more than sound, it’s a social encounter
Key Takeaway
This study explores whether the brain’s social circuitry influences how we experience music. Researchers found that highly empathetic people experience music like a social event and have higher activity in brain regions associated with social cognition and the mirror neuron system. The more empathetic you are, the more your brain treats a melody like a human voice or a social interaction, as music is auditory evidence of human action.
The Mystery
What we know
Music has a powerful ability to evoke emotion, and we’ve observed that people have high empathy tend to report much more intense emotional responses to music than others (Egermann & McAdams, 2016).
At the core of this phenomenon is the Mirror Neuron System (MNS), the brain’s “copycat” circuit. We know that these neurons don’t just fire when we move; they fire when we observe someone else moving, allowing us to simulate their actions in our own minds (Iacoboni, 2009). Prior research has shown that this system is present in both the visual and auditory parts of the brain. The MNS can fire when we hear the sound of an action, such as a hand clapping or a tool being used (Kohler et al., 2002). For an empathetic person, this system is highly sensitive, leading researchers to wonder if the MNS mimics the energy and effort of a musical performance in the same way they mirror a person’s physical gestures.
What we don’t know
Is this intense musical experience just a mood or a vague feeling, or is it happening at a deeper neurophysiological level?
While we know that music activates the brain’s reward centers, we don’t fully understand if the brain treats music as a social stimulus (Zatorre & Salimpoor, 2012). If we can’t see the musician, does the brain still use its social regions, like the Temporoparietal Junction (TPJ) and the Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG), to process the sound? (Wallmark et al., 2018). Researchers wanted to pin down whether the empathy we feel for a song is actually the brain using its social machinery to treat the music as a virtual human presence (Frith & Frith, 2006; Wallmark et al., 2018).
The Setup
Approach
The researchers used a two-step approach. First, they used behavioral surveys to establish a link between empathy and musical preference (Experiment 1). Then, they used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to observe the neurophysiological real-time response to music in the brain (Experiment 2).
Experiment Design
Experiment 1 (Behavioral): Participants completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), a multidimensional tool used to measure trait empathy (Davis, 1980). They then listened to various music excerpts and rated them based on preference (liking) and familiarity. This allowed researchers to see if empathetic people naturally gravitate toward certain “social” sounds in music.
Experiment 2 (Neuroimaging): A subset of participants listened to the same music while inside an fMRI scanner. Unlike many studies, they were given no visual cues i.e. no videos of performers and no social context. This ensured that any activity in the brain’s social regions was triggered solely by the acoustic features of the music itself.
| Tool | Goal |
|---|---|
| Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) | measures four “shades” of empathy, including Perspective Taking (mentalizing) and Empathic Concern (feeling for others). |
| fMRI | Tracks blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals. When a brain region works harder, it requires more oxygen; the fMRI catches those flashes of activity (Logothetis et al., 2001). |
What we expect
The researchers hypothesized that music is a virtual social agent. If this is true, people with high trait empathy scores shouldn’t just show activity in the auditory cortex (the hearing center). We expect to see a significant spike in the Mirror Neuron System (MNS) activity, specifically the Inferior Frontal Gyrus and Premotor areas, as their brains attempt to simulate the human intentions behind the sounds (Iacoboni, 2009; Wallmark et al., 2018).
The Discovery
High-empathy listeners don’t just hear music; they simulate it. While listening to music, their brains recruit the same areas used to process human intentions and social meaning (Wallmark et al., 2018).
Results
The Social Hub: High-empathy individuals showed significantly higher activation in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), an area critical for “Theory of Mind” or thinking about others’ internal states (Frith & Frith, 2006; Wallmark et al., 2018).
Mirroring the Sound: There was a strong correlation between empathy scores and activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). This suggests that empathetic people mirror the perceived energy or emotion of the performer, essentially acting out the music in their minds (Iacoboni, 2009; Wallmark et al., 2018).
Reward Sensitivity: Highly empathetic people also showed more activity in the ventral striatum. This explains why music often feels more “pleasurable” or rewarding to them; their brains are literally giving them a bigger hit of dopamine for the social connection they find in the notes (Wallmark et al., 2018; Zatorre & Salimpoor, 2012).
The Horizon
So What?
This suggests that music functions as a virtual social agent. For someone with high empathy, music is akin to human connection. Because the brain is simulating the physical action behind the music (Molnar-Szakacs & Overy, 2006), it begins to attribute agency (human-like intent) to the sound itself.
Neutral Brain: Processes a sound wave as an acoustic event.
Empathetic Brain: Reconstructs the human intent and movement behind the sound wave (Wallmark et al., 2018).
Once your brain starts treating a sound as if it has intent or emotion, it triggers social regions like the Temporoparietal Junction (TPJ). These are the same areas you use when you are trying to figure out what a friend is thinking (Frith & Frith, 2006). Essentially, highly empathetic people have a lower threshold for what counts as a social stimulus; their brains are so tuned into others that they tend to over-identify with the music, treating the instrument as if it were a person speaking, laughing, or crying.
The Logic:
- Trait Empathy makes you naturally better at mirroring the states of others.
- Music is essentially a record of human physical action and emotional expression.
- The Mirror Neuron System (MNS) simulates those actions in the listener’s brain.
- The Social Brain interprets that internal simulation as a meaningful social encounter.
Reality Check
We still face a “chicken or the egg” problem. We don’t know the causal direction of this effect. Does having high trait empathy simply make you more sensitive to music, or can a lifetime of deep music listening train your brain to be more empathetic? (Wallmark et al., 2018). Furthermore, most of these studies use Western musical structures; we don’t yet know if these effects translate across vastly different music around the global.
Future Directions
This opens a fascinating door for Music Therapy. If music can bypass the need for a physical person and still trigger the brain’s social machinery, it could be used to develop social skills in individuals who find direct human interaction overwhelming, such as those on the autism spectrum. By training the Mirror Neuron System through sound, we might be able to strengthen the neural pathways used for real-world empathy (Iacoboni, 2009; Wallmark et al., 2018).
Jargon Decoder
The Source
This report is a summary of the research conducted by Wallmark et al. (2018).
Original Title: “Neurophysiological Effects of Trait Empathy in Music Listening”
Authors: Zakarih Wallmark, Choi Deblieck, and Marco Iacoboni.
Published: 2018, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
Affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
References
Davis, M. H. (1980). A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy. JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 10, 85.
Egermann, H., & McAdams, S. (2016). The role of empathy in feeling empathy from music. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 33(5), 610–628.
Frith, C. D., & Frith, U. (2006). The neural basis of mentalizing. Neuron, 50(4), 531–534. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2006.05.001
Iacoboni, M. (2009). Imitation, empathy, and mirror neurons. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 653–670. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163604
Kohler, E., Keysers, C., Umiltà, M. A., Fogassi, L., Gallese, V., & Rizzolatti, G. (2002). Hearing sounds, understanding actions: Action representation in mirror neurons. Science, 297(5582), 846–848.
Logothetis, N. K., Pauls, J., Augath, M., Trinath, T., & Oeltermann, A. (2001). Neurophysiological investigation of the basis of the fMRI signal. Nature, 412(6843), 150–157.
Wallmark, Z., Deblieck, C., & Iacoboni, M. (2018). Neurophysiological effects of trait empathy in music listening. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 12, 66. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00066
Zatorre, R. J., & Salimpoor, V. N. (2012). Musical pleasure and reward: Mechanisms and dysfunction. The Biological Foundations of Music, 302. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2012.06457.x