Listening to music in a risk-reward context: The roles of the temporoparietal junction and the orbitofrontal/insular cortices in reward-anticipation, reward-gain, and reward-loss.
Artificial rewards, such as visual arts and music, produce pleasurable feelings. Popular songs in the verse-chorus form provide a useful model for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of artificial rewards, because the chorus is usually the most rewarding element of a song. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, the stimuli were excerpts of 10 popular songs with a tensioned verse-to-chorus transition. We examined the neural correlates of three phases of reward processing: (1) reward-anticipation during the verse-to-chorus transition, (2) reward-gain during the first phrase of the chorus, and (3) reward-loss during the unexpected noise followed by the verse-to-chorus transition. Participants listened to these excerpts in a risk-reward context because the verse was followed by either the chorus or noise with equal probability. The results showed that reward-gain and reward-loss were associated with left- and right-biased temporoparietal junction activation, respectively. The bilateral temporoparietal junctions were active during reward-anticipation. Moreover, we observed left-biased lateral orbitofrontal activation during reward-anticipation, whereas the medial orbitofrontal cortex was activated during reward-gain. The findings are discussed in relation to the cognitive and emotional aspects of reward processing.
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Chia-Wei
CW
Li
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; Neurobiology and Cognitive Science Center, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Jyh-Horng
JH
Chen
Neurobiology and Cognitive Science Center, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; Graduate Institute of Musicology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. Electronic address: tsaichengia@ntu.edu.tw.
Chen-Gia
CG
Tsai
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D059031:Anticipation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D012201:Reward; D012309:Risk-Taking; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
Popular song; Reward-anticipation; Reward-gain; Reward-loss; Verse-chorus form