Reward Processing In Different Types Of Music: A Behavioral And ERP Study

In today’s society,where music is everywhere.it’s hard to imagine a life without music.However,music is not a necessity for human existence,why is it so closely related to human life? The researchers speculate that this may be due to the fact that music is similar to money and food and has a reward value.Although previous studies have found that listening to music induces pleasant emotions and activates the reward area of the brain,no study has yet explored music reward processing from the perspective of time course.At the same time,the question of whether all music can be used as a reward is still unclear.Based on this,this study takes different types of music as the perspective,adopts the ERP method,and explores the music reward processing around the two stages of reward expectation and reward feedback,thereby verifying the reward value of music.This study included two ERP experiments,using two types of musical clips(pleasure music and preferred music)as musical stimuli.Both experiments employ the Incentive Delay Paradigm.Experiment 1 explored the difference between musical and verbal reward processing by manipulating the types of reward stimuli(chord and verbal stimuli)and reward conditions from the perspective of auditory channels.Although the correct rate and reaction time in the reward condition were significantly higher than those in the neutral condition,the ERP results showed that the amplitudes of cue-P3 and CNV in the reward anticipation stage under the reward condition were significantly greater than the neutral condition both musical reward and verbal reward tasks,indicating that the brain can respond to cues stimuli.However,only in the verbal reward task,the SPN in the reward condition was more negative than in the neutral condition;in the early stages of reward acquisition,the FRN after booing was more negative than applauding only in the verbal reward task,which did not appear in the music task similar effect.In the late stages of reward acquisition,no significant difference in fbP3 amplitude between rewarded and neutral conditions was found in either the musical or verbal reward tasks.The above results suggest that although pleasant music have positive emotional properties,they are not sufficient to induce a reward effect.If the reward may be associated with positive emotional experience,and the perceived pleasure of the music clips does not indicate that the listener will necessarily experience pleasure in it.This may lead to the fact that the music chord in Experiment1 did not evoke the corresponding reward processing.Because the preferred music is considered to be related to the pleasant emotional experience,Experiment 2 used the preferred music as the musical stimulus,and explored the reward processing of the preferred music by comparing it with the food and monetary reward processing.This experiment also manipulated the type of reward stimuli(preferring music,preferring fruit and money)and reward conditions.In the music,food,and monetary reward tasks,the correct rate and reaction time in the reward condition were significantly higher than those in the neutral condition.The ERP results showed that in the reward anticipation phase,like food and monetary reward processing,music preference evoked cue-P3 effect but not CNV effect,however,unlike food and monetary reward tasks,preferred music did not induce SPN effect;In the reward feedback stage,similar to food and money,music preference evoked Rew P and fb-P3 effects,but these two ERP effects induced by music were smaller than those of the other two types of rewards.The above results suggest that,similar to money and food,preferred music can induce a rewarding effect.The above research results show that not all music can be used as a reward,and the preferred music has reward value.During the reward feedback phase,the brain elicits similar neural responses to music preferences as food and monetary rewards.This study is the first to explore the field of music reward processing from the perspective of electrophysiology,and to verify the possible reward value of music.These results not only deepen the theoretical study of music reward,but also provide insights into cognitive processing and an emproical basis of clinical research on music intervention in the field of education from the perspective of reward.