Perception of Blithe music on the Brain

Music is an art that combines tones in a harmonious manner to produce a composition. But the ability to perceive varies depending upon the level of training pertaining to the knowledge of music an individual has received. Although various studies have shown the difference between musicians and non-musicians while listening to music, the differentiation in perception is yet to be analyzed. This study focused on obtaining the EEG signals from 20 participants, that is 10 non-musicians and 10 musicians, that are pre-processed and feature extracted under particular frequency bands. The relative power was used to obtain the asymmetry index, correlation and regression. The correlogram of the theta band of the musicians showed a significant correlation between the electrode locations and the relative power of the frontal locations were observed to be higher indicating that the stimulus was perceived to be pleasant. Also, predictors for arousal were found to have significant correlation which supported the results of the behavioral data that the musicians had an elevated feeling of excitement and this improved perception of the raga shankarabharanam was due to the familiarity and the musical knowledge that the musicians possess in contrast with the non-musicians.