Professors were able to learn how to form an attachment to music.
Scientists from Georgetown University have found the mechanism through which popular songs bring people pleasure.
The researchers analyzed 545 popular songs and found harmonic structure common to many songs. Scientists have studied songs from 1958 to 1991, which was included in the “Billboard hot hundred” – the weekly top 100 popular U.S. songs. The popularity was measured based on the chart, where you can get the song and the residence time at the peak of popularity.
According to scientists, the key to the success of the song – combine the familiar combinations of chords and “harmonious surprises” within the same composition. “Surprise” the researchers named the rare and unusual for pop music harmonious passages, where the listener does not expect.
For example, in Western pop music for chord C major or most are in g major or f major. If the composer is to change this sequence, the listener will perceive harmony as a “surprise”.
In most popular songs these “surprises” happen much more often than in the songs for outsiders. In most hit leaders attended a fairly long fragments of the usual listener harmonious moves.
Researchers believe that the reasons for the popularity of such a scheme associated with the work of the “reward system” of the human brain. Earlier studies have shown that the new information is in the body “dopamine response” secretion of the neurotransmitter dopamine, associated in particular with a sense of satisfaction. Unexpected harmonic move, according to scientists, can cause the same reaction.
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