The scientists found that the songs that triggered the strongest response from both the emotional and intellectual parts of the brain were correlated with a willingness to pay more.And that suggests that people get not just a sensory reward from listening to music but a direct intellectual one too, even if they're unaware of it.

The reward of music

Melody and rhythm can:<ul><li>Trigger feelings from sadness to serenity to joy to awe;</li><li>Bring memories from childhood vividly back to life. </li></ul>

Music and Brain Activities

Music may, in other words, tap into a brain mechanism that was key to our evolutionary progress. The ability to recognize patterns and generalize from experience to predict what's likely to happen in the future. In short, the ability to imagine is something humans do far better than any other animal. It allowed us (aided by a far less glamorous opposable thumb) to take over the world.

Music was the key to our evolutionary progress

Music triggers activity in the same brain structure that releases the "pleasure chemical" dopamine during sex and eating.

If making music isn’t the most ancient of human activities, it’s got to be pretty close. Melody and rhythm can trigger feelings from sadness to serenity to joy to awe; they can bring memories from childhood vividly back to life.

The reward of music

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