Hamid Koroni

ISM- Period 1

“How Do We Hear?” National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services, 3 Jan. 2018, www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/how-

do-we-hear.

• Sound waves travel from the outer ear, and to through the ear canal to vibrate on the ear
drum (aka tympanic membrane)
• The ear drum carries the sound waves to three bones behind it to continue vibrations
• These three bones are the Incus, Stapes, and Malleus.
• The bones amplify the vibrations, which are sent to the cochlea, a snail shell shaped
structure.
• The Cochlea is filled with fluid
• An elastic divide runs from beginning to end of cochlea, developing into a upper and
lower part
• This divide is called the basilar membrane as important hearing structures sit on it
• A wave forms in the fluid of the cochlea from the sound wave
• Hair cells sit on the basilar membrane and hop on the wave
• Cells toward the outside of the cochlea shell hear high pitch frequencies while hair cells
in the center of the cochlea detect lower frequencies
• Stereocilia – microscopic hair like projections
• These perch on top of hair cells
• As hair cells move, the projections move against an overlying structure and bend
• As the stereocilia move they create pore like channels
• These channels open up, allowing chemicals rushing in, creating an electrical charge
• The auditory nerve picks up this signal, which is carried to the brain, turning into a sound
that we recognize

This source gives a deep explanation of how the ear hears, and this gives insight to the
complex anatomy and physiology that occurs to hear.
 Hamid Koroni
ISM- Period 1

“Music & How It Impacts Your Brain, Emotions.” Psych Central, 17 July 2016,

psychcentral.com/lib/music-how-it-impacts-your-brain-emotions/.

• Music can be a type of perceptual illusion, kind of like a collage

• Our brains are designed to impose order, patterns, and understanding of music
• The reality is that we listen to a sequence of sounds and try to make sense of it and
impose structure
• Skillful composers manipulate emotions by manipulating what the audience expects
• The brain synchronizes neural oscillators with the pulse of the music
• This happens through cerebellum activation
• Neural oscillators are brain waves created by neural cells in the Central Nervous
System
• The responses are mainly unconscious
• The music is processed first through the cerebellum and amygdala rather than the
frontal lobe
• Music involves subtle violations of time
• Music is not threatening so the frontal lobes react to this as a source of pleasure
• Expectation builds the anticipation, which results in a reward reaction
• Music is one of the strongest stimuli in reflection with memory
• Music has the ability to develop feelings and images that don’t necessarily direct with
memory
• Phenomenon still a mystery
• Synesthesia- the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the
body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body. (google definition)
• It is believed that at birth and in early childhood, everything is a huge blend of
sounds, colors, and feelings, the ultimate synesthesia
• As brain develops, it specializes in certain lobes to discern different senses.

This source explains the Psychology in how music elicits different motions by explaining certain
thought processes behind music.
 Hamid Koroni
ISM- Period 1

Bezbatchenko, Laura, et al. “What Emotions Are Elicited from Different Genres of Music?”

• Music has a huge range of genre

• Different genres give different emotions
• “in order to be moved by music (physically and emotionally),” Daniel Levitin argues, “it
helps a great deal to have a readily predictable beat” (Levitin, 2006, pp 166). (This is a
cited source on the research paper)
• Emotions from music are interpreted by the entire brain
• Negative emotions interpreted in the right hemisphere
• Positive emotions interpreted in the left hemisphere
• Music therapy has recently been popularized to treat stress, anxiety, and pain
• Listening to music also recommended as a way to have positive feelings and emotions
• Jazz is an example of music being ingrained into a culture and being heavily popularized
• One emotion associated with can be chaos due to the genre of jazz within itself and how
most jazz tunes are based on improvisation.
• Jazz can be a combination of sadness, happiness, and excitement
• Jazz improvisation for someone who is not familiar with it can find it to be chaotic, but
others find it pleasant because they know that most improv is based on chord progression
and little edits of the original tune.
• Studies prove that listening to jazz is a really good choice of music when exercising
because it increases respiration rate and heartbeat
• Most emotions with faster breathing and heartrate are negative, but jazz can very well be
positive.
• When the emotions associated with classical and jazz music are in comparison, classical
is mainly based on stress-relief, but Jazz provides a whole spectrum of emotions
• Described as “motivating, joyous, passionate, and uplifting”
• Classical music can reduce anxiety and depression.
• The “Mozart Effect” in which listening to classical music makes you smarter is a
temporary effect.

This research paper was a really in depth analysis on the ideas of how the type of music, the
specific genre, elicits different emotions.