While many would not often not regard music similarly to language, as a communicative form of expression, studying music in a similar fashion to language has ultimately provided some very interesting as well as unique insights into many different psycholingistic, the study of the psychology of language, and cognitive properties that can be associated with the art form. On a more technical and psycholinguistic level, music, as compared to language, can also be broken into multiple distinct syntaxes, or genres in the case of music, each of which carries its own respective sociolinguistic connotations. An example of this is genres such as rap and hip-hop that are generally associated with social commentary. In addition to this, genres also often carry unique and specific syntactical applications with them as well, with genres such as jazz being a great example of this as jazz places a heavier emphasis on the musician’s personal biases through improvisation. With these different and sometimes highly technical psychological applications often unthought of as situated within music, a large intersection between neurophysiology and music is revealed—and this is an area that is often left largely unexplored by science.
Through understanding how music functions linguistically, we can begin to explore the cognitive states that are triggered by music. Even as an art form, music is a remarkable field for studying human cognition; by applying neurophysiological perspectives to music, such as the intricate coordination of motor skills, cognitive processing, and emotional regulation with the more mathematical structures, such as rhythm, harmony, and melody that ultimately elicit emotional triggers neuroscientists can link the fine arts with with sciences. Through computational modeling, we can begin to uncover how music fosters unique cognitive optimizations found particularly during the creative flow state. A powerful tool for optimizing cognitive function, flow is “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter (Rosen et al., 2024).” Originally identified by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Dolan, 2024), cognitive flow is a state of highly optimized task-specific processing that is often linked to constant domain-general associative ideation, better known as creativity. Generally, through practice, dedication, and a little bit of passion, musicians of all levels can both demonstrate and experience this state of consciousness to the extent of the linguistic proficiency to which we generally speak. This ability to “let go” and “to operate with minimal conscious oversight” is what makes the flow state an exciting topic for neuroscientists, as this state ultimately functions through the recruitment of highly specialized brain networks that, when modeled computationally, provide valuable insight into high-level cognitive functioning through neurocomputational modeling.
This flow state, when explored through neurocomputational modeling, can provide deeper insight into the brain’s processing of musical structure and creativity. Oftentimes, a major factor of emphasis regarding creative tasks performed in flow states is feedback on one’s novel ideas and creative processes that are often generated through a general understanding and conformation to a rigid set of rules associated with the artform, similar to how speech is dictated by grammar rules. Especially in music, “structure and experience are tightly linked. Therefore, music theory lies at a philosophically and methodologically challenging intersection between psychology and formal modeling because it links human musical experience with the formal/mathematical characterization of the structures underlying it. Hence, music theory lies at the heart of the research program of the Cognative Sciences” (Rohrmeier, 2020). This idea that music is shaped by a “formal grammar” is ultimately what leads to the gerneative approach used throughout modern neurocomputational modeling.
As neurocomputational models continue to evolve, the potential for deeper insights into how music affects cognition and creativity grows exponentially, opening up new avenues for both science and art; and through exploring unique cognitive states such as flow states, neuroscientific, mathematical, and physical representaions of the brain can be created through more artistic applications to ultimately push and explore the boundaries of neurocomputational models.
References
Dolan, E. W. (2024, March 6). Scientists team up with jazz musicians to reveal the neuroscience of creative flow. https://www.psypost.org/scientists-team-up-with-jazz-musicians-to-reveal-the-neuroscience-of-creative-flow/
Rohrmeier, M. (2020, April 1). The syntax of jazz harmony: Diatonic tonality, phrase structure, and form. The Syntax of Jazz Harmony: Diatonic Tonality, Phrase Structure, and Form. https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/leuven/mta/2020/00000007/00000001/art00001;jsessionid=1h40lgnaq0nqe.x-ic-live-03#
Rosen, D., Oh, Y., Chesebrough, C., Zhang, F. Z., & Kounios, J. (2024). Creative flow as optimized processing: Evidence from brain oscillations during jazz improvisations by expert and non-expert musicians. Neuropsychologia, 196, 108824.
