Brain Patterns Could Predict Music Sales
According to a study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, particular patterns of brain activity may be able to predict how popular a song will be. Researcher Gregory Berns and his colleagues at Emory University discovered the phenomenon accidentally when they set out to study the effects of popular opinion on adolescent preferences. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record the brain responses of 27 subjects, aged 12 to 17, while listening to 120 songs from unsigned artists.
Most of the songs never sold well, but a few went on to become widely popular. The researchers discovered a correlation between brain responses and the songs that went on to sell more than 20,000 units. About one-third of those songs had drawn strong activity from the orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum—the two brain regions associated with reward. Weak activity in those regions was an even better indicator of non-hit songs.
Interestingly, the brain activity was a more accurate indicator than whether the participants said they liked or disliked a song. Berns believes that this may be explained because the brain response is the raw feelings about the song, while the opinion expressed verbally may be swayed by what the listener thinks the questioner wants to hear.
< Back to latest Music and Health
