Why Does Music Move Us? Music exists in every culture. Does that mean it offers an evolutionary advantage? What drives humans to make music? And why does music get so deeply embedded into our lives? We’ll delve deeper into what music can teach us about the human brain – with musicians and researchers including:
- Jazz guitarist Pat Martino who lost his memory after neurosurgery and retaught himself how to play.
- Neuroscience researcher Psyche Loui at Wesleyan University who studies chills and strongly emotional responses to intense aesthetic experiences like music.
- Petr Janata from the Center for the Mind and the Brain at UC Davis who is interested in how we “groove” to music, the pleasurable urge to move that’s elicited by music.
- Steven Pinker, linguist and evolutionary psychologist who is famous for the line that music is not an evolutionary adaptation but “auditory cheesecake.”
The featured editor of this episode is the award-winning environmental and science journalist, Michelle Nijuis. Michelle is widely known and respected in the science writer community with her work appearing in places like National Geographic.
This special will air on Friday April 11, 2014 at 10 AM and 8 PM
Each week KCPW brings you an insightful and refreshing hour of analysis of the world around you. Sometimes, this is a special documentary produced in our studios, sometimes it’s a collaboration with our community partners and sometimes it’s a hand-picked piece, produced by an outside source. Produced by KCPW Studios
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