The cross-modal literature posits a weak-to-strong continuum of synesthesia. One extreme views cross-modal associations as idiosyncratic and unique to synesthetes. The other extreme suggests that cross-modal associations follow a general pattern across individuals, and are mediated by emotional associations. We tested these views by examining differences between music-color synesthetes and non-...

BACKGROUND Music has been used for therapeutic purposes since the beginning of cultural history. However, despite numerous descriptions of beneficial effects, the precise mechanisms by which music may improve human well-being remain unclear. METHODS We conducted a randomized study in ten critically ill patients to identify mechanisms of music-induced relaxation using a special selection of sl...

OBJECTIVE It had been found that environmental music was associated with an increase in alcohol consumption. The presence versus absence of music, high versus slow tempo and the different styles of environmental music is associated with different level of alcohol consumption. However, the effect of the level of the environmental music played in a bar still remained in question. METHODS Forty ...

The literature on content-based music retrieval has largely finessed acoustic issues by using MIDI format music. This paper however considers content-based classification and retrieval of a typical (MPEG layer III) digital music archive. Two statistical techniques are investigated and appraised. Gaussian Mixture Modelling performs well with an accuracy of 92% on a music classification task. A T...

Respiration rate allows to differentiate between happy and sad excerpts which may be attributable to entrainment of respiration to the rhythm or the tempo rather than to emotions [Etzel, J.A., Johnsen, E.L., Dickerson, J., Tranel, D., Adolphs, R., 2006. Cardiovascular and respiratory responses during musical mood induction. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 61(1), 57-69]. In order to test for this hypothe...

BACKGROUND There is growing interest in the relation between the brain and music. The appealing similarity between brainwaves and the rhythms of music has motivated many scientists to seek a connection between them. A variety of transferring rules has been utilized to convert the brainwaves into music; and most of them are mainly based on spectra feature of EEG. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS...

Gamakas are an integral aspect of Carnatic Music, a form of classical music prevalent in South India. They are used in rāgas, which may be seen as melodic scales and/or a set of characteristic melodic phrases. Gamakas exhibit continuous pitch variation often spanning several semitones. In this paper, we study how gamakas scale with tempo and propose a novel approach to change the tempo of Carna...

BACKGROUND Musical performance is a skilled activity performed under intense pressure, thus is often a profound source of anxiety. In other contexts, anxiety and its concomitant symptoms of sympathetic nervous system arousal have been successfully ameliorated with HRV biofeedback (HRV BF), a technique involving slow breathing which augments autonomic and emotional regulatory capacity. OBJECTI...