The Neural Basis For The Processing Of Musical Aesthetic Rules

Aesthetic education has been an important part of human educational system.The core of aesthetic education is to cultivate students’ ability to recognize,appreciate and create beauty,thus promoting their all-round development morally,intellectually and physically.Now,aesthetic education is particularly important in China.In order to improve the aesthetic education,we must understand how the human brain processes beauty.However,this question remains unclear.Therefore,this study aimed to reveal the neural basis of aesthetic processing of music with the structure of Qǐ-ChéngZhuǎn-Hé(introducting-following-changing-concluding)in music period.Qǐ and Chéng is the starting and inheriting of music,Zhuǎn is the transferring of music,and Hé is combining of music.The position of Zhuǎn is three fourths of music,has been considered as the Golden Section.Given the critical role of zhuǎn,we manipulated its position and placed it in the second or fourth phrase.On the other hand,we used melodic sequences expressed positive or negative emotion because the relationship between aesthetic processing and emotional valence is ambiguous.Therefore,the present study consisted of four EEG experiments.Experiments 1 and 2 were to examine listeners’ neural responses to the music periods of “Qǐ-Chéng-Zhuǎn-Hé” and “Qǐ-Chéng-Hé-Zhuǎn” when music expressed positive or negative emotion.Behavioral results showed that music periods that conform to the structure of “Qǐ-Chéng-Zhuǎn-Hé” were rated more beautiful than that of the structure of “Qǐ-Chéng-Hé-Zhuǎn”,regardless of whether music was positive or negative valence.EEG results indicated that music periods of “Qǐ-Chéng-ZhuǎnHé” compared to “Qǐ-Chéng-Hé-Zhuǎn” induced more stronger energy activities in beta and theta bands,and smaller LRTC.Furthermore,the music phrase of “Hé” in the “Qǐ-Chéng-Hé-Zhuǎn” evoked smaller P3 and more negative CNV amplitude,while the music phrase of “Zhuǎn” evoked smaller P3.Experiments 3 and 4 were to examine listeners’ neural responses to the music periods of “Qǐ-Chéng-Zhuǎn-Hé” and “Qǐ-Zhuǎn-Chéng-Hé” when music expressed positive or negative emotion.Behavioral results revealed that music periods of “Qǐ-Chéng-Zhuǎn-Hé” were considered more beautiful than that of “Qǐ-Zhuǎn-Chéng-Hé”,no matter what emotion music expressed.EEG results exhibited that compared with music periods of “Qǐ-Zhuǎn-Chéng-Hé”,music periods of “Qǐ-Chéng-Zhuǎn-Hé” induced stronger energy activities in beta and theta bands,and smaller LRTC.Moreover,the music phrase of “Zhuǎn” in the “Qǐ-Zhuǎn-Chéng-Hé” evoked more negative CNV amplitude,while the music phrase of “Chéng” and “Hé” evoked smaller P3.The results of this study show that neural responses to music periods of “Qǐ-Chéng-Zhuǎn-Hé” are different from that of “Qǐ-Chéng-Hé-Zhuǎn” and “Qǐ-ZhuǎnChéng-Hé”.The different responses are related to aesthetic judgements of music and unrelated to musical valence These results help deepen human’s understanding of themselves,and provide a reliable empirical evidence for aesthetic education.