WEBVTT - Minds of Musical Emptiness 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stop 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:15.720 Work dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.840 My name is Robert Lamb, and my name is Christian Seger. 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:23.640 Hey Robert, he ever met a person who doesn't like music? 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:26.640 I do not think I've ever met anyone who just 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.960 across the board doesn't like music. I've certainly met plenty 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:34.800 of people who seem to dislike music in certain scenarios 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:38.239 because I'm the kind of type of types of music, well, 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:41.600 types of music, but also music in certain situations, like 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:45.440 I've certainly known people who don't like music while driving. 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:48.960 I'm of the mindset I want music on all the time, 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.720 just about music of my own choosing, but music. I 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:56.520 know a lot of our colleagues have difficulty writing while 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.279 there's music on. I don't have that problem, although I 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:03.520 do like sort of cultivate playlists of stuff that helps 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.800 me to write, you know, mostly instrumental stuff. But there's 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.679 certain music that I can listen to that has vocals 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.080 that I can listen to all writing. But yeah, so 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:14.160 you know, I know, like you like, I've known like 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.000 various sort of iterations of people who can't listen to 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:19.600 music during certain times. I've only meant like one or 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.560 two people in my life who just don't. They literally 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.319 say I don't like music, And that's so alien, so 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.679 difficult for us to comprehend, because it's like hearing someone say, oh, 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.120 I don't I don't like food, like I don't like 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:33.959 drinking liquids. It almost seems inhuman in a way. And 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.600 I think like when you hear that, at least in 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:40.280 my experience, people will kind of think like, oh, that's 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.880 the trade of a psychopath, right, But it's not. It's 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.840 actually not. We've talked about psychopaths on the show and 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:49.360 that hasn't come up as one of the symptoms. But also, 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.000 as we're going to talk about today, this is a 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:55.480 real brain condition. Yeah, at least a couple of different 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:57.920 conditions we're going to discuss, and I think they both 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:03.720 serve to remind us just how tenuous our sensory experience 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.320 of the world really is. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, like, 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:09.280 think about you and me, right, Like the audience probably knows, 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.120 if they don't already, that you are really into electronic 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.080 music and you cover it for stuff to blow your mind, 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:21.200 I'd say weekly, right, Yeah, and um, and I as 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:23.800 many people have heard on other episodes, grew up in 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:25.960 the punkin metal scene and still listen to a lot 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.800 of that stuff, which a lot of people find unlistenable 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:33.079 and dissonant, including you know, my wife and um, I'm 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.440 okay with that. But it's interesting because dissonance plays into 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:39.600 these diseases as well. Well, here's a quick question for you, 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:41.800 and I think this helps to sort of this helps 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.280 a lot of us, uh, try and comprehend what some 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:47.440 of these conditions are. Like, Yeah, like what what's the 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:49.880 type of music that you just really don't get that 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.560 you just you can't really listen to, you don't understand, 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.880 and and you're just willing to say, yeah, I that 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:01.280 is not for me usually like np R style jazz. 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.000 I don't want to say jazz in general, because there's 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:06.840 plenty of stuff that's being done in that area that's 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.760 interesting and I like, but like that kind of like 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.840 background elevator music jazz, you know what I mean? Like 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:15.919 that that drives me crazy. It's like fingers on a 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:19.400 chalkboard for me. It's I have to say jazz as well. 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.079 And part of this could be I mean the view 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.720 I guess is the jazz takes some getting used to. 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:26.640 You have to be you have to immerse yourself in it. 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.639 And I like some jazz, and I like jazzy elements 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:31.359 and some of the music I listened to from time 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:35.160 to time. But it's that jazzy jazz that's spacey jazz, 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:40.080 that that completely unhinged jazz that just kind of gives 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.200 me to shape, making me think of this joke on 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:44.040 Parks and Rack. I don't know if you remember this, 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:47.040 but the their local MPR station, they had a show 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:54.720 and they would say jazz plus jazz equals jazz. Whenever 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:57.520 I hear something like that, I'm like, nope. There. In 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.800 the general, I often think about it that it's maybe 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:05.400 like a like a strong alcoholic property, you know, some 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.440 strong liqueur that you would never drink on your on 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.000 its own, but you would use in a recipe or 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.600 would you would certainly use in them using a mixed drink. 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:17.840 So I often think, well, that is that is the strong, 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.080 undeluded stuff that is not for me. Yeah, but you 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.600 can put a like a shot of it, or like 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:25.960 I will. I don't drink clearly, so shots a lot, 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:29.400 but you know a little bit, it's like adding grenadine 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:31.880 to your to your soda or something like, yeah, you 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.160 could drink and given a little flavor. Well, like punk 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:35.760 is is one of those things. I think about this 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.960 sometimes it's like pure punk. I just it's not my scene, 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.360 it's not what I dig. But I've certainly loved groups 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.240 that have elements of punk in their sound. They either 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.240 come out of punk or find some of their musical 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:52.440 genre to combine it with, Like um oh the Pokes 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:54.680 come to mind. Yeah, share a little bit of Irish music, 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.560 a little bit of punk music. It's really I would 0:04:57.560 --> 0:04:59.560 be hard pressed to want to listen to Irish or 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:01.360 punk mu look on their own, but when these two 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.640 come together, then I you know, I've always enjoyed it. Yeah, No, 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.440 I can definitely see that, even like having spent many 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:12.240 a year in basements watching just like crusty punk bands 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:16.320 just hammering out four chord songs. Uh, I can understand 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.280 where you're coming from and that that sort of has 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:21.320 led to like what a lot of our I guess, 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.880 like popular alternative music is nowadays. Right, it's like a 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:29.200 fusion of punk and jazz or punkin metal, or where 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:31.360 Joe and I were just talking the other night about 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.680 Scott like nineties and how that was sort of something 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.320 like that. Yeah, well, okay, enough about our musical interests. 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.880 But so clearly we're human beings who love music. We've 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:43.919 got opinions about music. We like to talk about it, 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.240 we like to listen to it, we got to shows. Um. 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:49.880 But there's people out there who don't. And it's not 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.680 just because you know they don't, they don't go to 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.400 things like that, or they're just not. It's because there's 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.320 literally something going on in their brain that makes it 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:03.880 so that they're capable of enjoying music. Something's wired differently. 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.640 Some systems are online in a slightly different array, and 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:09.960 we will get into into these in a moment, but 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.080 before we do, without it be helpful to just go 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.960 ahead and give a nice overview of the cognitive experience 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:20.240 of music, just basically what's going on when we process it. 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.960 So music is of course a deep part of our 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.760 cognitive architecture. It changes our mood, it heightens our emotions, 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:30.160 it summons and banishes memories, It affects the manner in 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.680 which we preceive perceived time. Even we can actually use 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.920 it to treat illnesses of the mind and body. So 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:40.320 it's powerful stuff. It's potent stuff that's not even just 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.200 with human beings. There's been research done on plants that 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:47.120 music affects plants, so we're talking about some serious magic here. 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.520 There are parts of the brain that respond to music 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.880 that that don't respond to language. There are separate parts 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.279 of the brain that respond to melody, to the melody 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:58.560 of language, different than these different for the parts of 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:00.640 the brain the respond to the melody of music. They 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.960 are parts of the brain that deal with movement, attention, planning, 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.240 and memory, and these all respond to music even though 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:10.240 they don't have anything to do with the actual auditory process. 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:13.040 So there's a lot going on behind the scenes, and 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:15.320 and we don't fully understand it yet. I mean, I 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.960 would say this research well, you know, we'll talk about 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:20.960 it later, but really, only in the last century have 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:23.520 we even been aware of this as a medical condition. 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:25.800 But only in maybe the last twenty or thirty years 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:28.040 has there have been like real deep research into what 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:30.920 this means. Yeah, and certainly there's a lot of wonderful 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:33.640 research out there about our relationship with music, and we 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.320 can't cover it all here, but just a couple of 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:40.720 i think illuminating studies to to touch on here um in. 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:43.120 In recent years, we found that you can look to 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.280 the brain via f m R I, and specifically you 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.720 can look at brain activity in the nucleus incumbence. This 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:54.000 is involved in the formation of expectations, and we can 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:56.880 actually tell if a person is enjoying the music they're 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:01.520 listening to by looking at at brain activity in this region. 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.600 If it's meeting their musical expectations and matching up with 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.600 the stored templates of what you've heard before, then you 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.760 see stuff light up. Um, yeah, I could absolutely believe 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.800 that given my experience with music. Yeah, Like if you're 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:17.120 just like I don't know, Like here's an example, Like 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:19.120 I walk around sometimes and I'll just have like my 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:21.960 entire music library on shuffle on my phone or something 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.200 like that, Like one like really great song from my 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.440 high school days will pop up, and it's like I 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.640 can feel like, whatever those lights are that are going 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.040 on in my brain just activate, you know. Yeah. Yeah. 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.319 The expectation plays such an interesting role in our experiencing music, 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.440 because on one hand, there's there's something that happens when 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.720 a when a melody or a tune or the lyrics 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:45.760 take you to that place you're expecting it to go 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:48.680 but then also when it goes to a slightly different 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:50.959 place where it kind of you think it's going to 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.000 turn left and it turns right. But that animates you 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:58.120 as well. It's it's it's almost like narrative without words. Really. 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:00.520 Ah yeah, that's a really interesting way to put it. 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.320 I um, I'll just do a little bit of subjective 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:05.840 experience here to throw in here. I'm not like, personally 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:07.760 a big fan of The Cure, but a friend of 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.240 mine is, uh and if he's listening her, this is 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.800 your story. So The Cure just played in Atlanta recently, 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:16.160 like I think like two weeks ago. Did you know 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:17.959 about this? Oh? Yeah, I have. I have some friends 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:20.920 who are really they went to this show. So the 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.120 way that he told me was that, like, apparently this 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.520 tour was like you know, they're going to be playing 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:27.360 all their greatest hits or whatever, but that was sort 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.280 of like a different arrangement of the musical instruments. So 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:32.400 he was really excited because he's like, well, I'm gonna 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:35.079 hear the songs that I love and it's gonna be 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.480 played by the guys who wrote them, but they're going 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:40.080 to be playing them in very different ways than I'm 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.160 used to and that's a wholly new experience. Oh yeah, 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.959 I've had an experience with I guess uh, tool has 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:48.599 been been worth seems like the kind of band that 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:50.560 would do something like that. They'll play with the intro 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.120 on something and so the live version at first you're 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:54.760 not sure what it's going to be, but then then 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:58.120 you realize, oh, it's it's this track, it's that track, whatever, 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.600 the particular track maybe, and there's this, you know, a 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:06.360 physical experience of excitement totally. When I was, you know, 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.400 still involved in the music scene and just go into 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:10.240 a lot of shows, the thing that was always the 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:12.320 most impressive to me, and that just showed like a 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:17.000 real classic professional touring band, was when they could play 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:21.120 an entire set without stopping, Like they would just start 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:23.920 and their songs. They had figured out ways to weave 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.240 their songs in and out of one another, so they 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:28.920 would just play like a really tight thirty forty minutes 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.200 set and then boom, they were done, got off on stage. 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.080 And that is the kind of thing that just floors you. 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:36.679 It's just like you don't have time to stop and 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.200 breathe and kind of judge them. Uh, for other factors 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:42.480 like whatever they're wearing, or what they say in between 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.160 songs or something. You're just like bombarded. Well, that's one 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.880 of the reasons that I've been so into DJ mixes 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.400 over the years. Uh, it's not quite the same as 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:54.840 a as a band performing their entire set without stop, 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.600 but the the idea that you can take various musical 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.880 elements and and a talented DJ it can create a 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:04.400 seamless tapestry of sound. I love that, and certainly you 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:09.680 get those six surprises, those expectations met or skewed throughout 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:12.960 that sonic narrative as well. So all right, we're clearly 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.920 establishing that we're music nerds. We love music, and whatever 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:19.400 parts of the brain that don't work for for some 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.679 of these people, they're they're lighting up like fireworks for us. Now. 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.800 Another key point though, is certainly you've been to a 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:30.120 concert or performance and you've been experiencing the music, and 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:34.000 maybe you've seen somebody like clearly their significant other drug 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.000 them here and they're not enjoying it, or they got 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.000 a free ticket and you said drug them. I thought 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:40.760 drug early gave them drugs so that they would just 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.240 sit put. But yeah, that's that's that's possible, depending on 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:47.040 these both. Yeah, so you've seen people that are not 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:50.679 into it, or they're they don't they're clearly they're the 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.200 first time or maybe they you don't feel like they 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.960 could possibly be enjoying the music on the same level 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.520 as you are. Yeah, possibly and and certainly like and 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.080 I have to applaud my wife again, like she's indulged 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.640 me by you know, sometimes I can't get a friend 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:07.160 to go with me to a particular kind of thing, 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.360 and she's like, all right, you know, let's I'll go 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.400 with you. You know, we'll go see Converge and High 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:15.880 on Fire. And she's just sitting there like shaking her 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:19.080 head while I'm like really into it, you know. Um, 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.959 so yeah, I get that. Well. It's interesting because despite 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:25.800 all of our very musical taste, in our varying levels 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.840 of engagement with particular types of music, particular performances, the 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:34.800 brain experiences that we have are actually pretty consistent among 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.959 most people. There was a two thousand thirteen study publishing 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.280 the European Journal of Euroscience, and they found that if 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:44.320 two people listened to the same track, one inexperienced fan 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.240 of the music and another not the other one. Just 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.200 like a newcomer you know, there's been dragged in there 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:53.000 by their spouse. You're still going to see the same 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:58.960 synchronization in several key brain areas and similar brain activity. 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:00.960 So as much as you you know, might like to 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.000 think you're experiencing your favorite band and an entirely different 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.840 cognitive level than the you know, the dumb guy next 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.559 to you with the glories on his fingers, Um, that 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.280 doesn't seem to be quite the case. We're still engaging 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.800 like the same networks. I wonder if this is similar 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.920 to like research that's been done on depression and anxiety 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:23.840 in that like, Um, the more you listen to the 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.520 songs over and over again, right like, it's maybe it's 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:30.880 like a like writing over the same pathway of the 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.360 brain over and over and over again, so it makes 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.000 it easier for that experience to happen. It's happening in 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.440 the same way for everybody, but it's just kind of 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:41.720 going through the brain. I don't know how to describe 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.000 this other than with like road metaphors, right Like, it's 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.280 like going down the same road, but it's just like 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.800 going down faster for for us, or something that plays 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.640 in expectation right where the road is gonna turn, where 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:56.840 it's gonna split. Yeah. Interesting, huh. I wonder if anybody's 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:01.280 done research on that, like the the the experience of 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:05.480 having music encoded to the brain as being similar to 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:10.760 the sort of expectations that encode anxiety into people. Yeah. 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:12.840 I will have to follow up on that, because I 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:14.640 know there have been a number of studies that have 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:18.160 looked into, you know, the potential therapeutic aspects of music, 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:22.120 as well as the role of music and in various 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.800 emotional states. Yeah. Right, and you think about it, like 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.120 some of the emotional states that are created by listening 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:32.200 to music have very similar symptoms to anxiety. Huh. All right, 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:34.080 maybe that's a future episode. We'll have to dig deep 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.760 for that one. But let's take a quick break and 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:38.880 then when we come back, we're going to talk about 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:49.200 the condition of a musia or tone deafness. All right, 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:52.160 we're back. So this first one, tone deaf deafness, a musia. 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:54.000 I feel like this is gonna be the one where 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.600 we're gonna see far more listeners who can share experiences 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.800 with this. Certainly we've probably all encounter people with varying 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.000 levels of tone deafness over the years. Yeah, and it 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:09.880 seems like tone deafness has variations on it, like extremes 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.680 or you know, some people have it to to less 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:18.720 an extent than others. The term congenital amusia is what 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.680 we use to denote tone deafness that you're born with. 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.480 It's been described in medical literature for more than a century, 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:30.600 and it manifests basically as a severe deficiency in processing 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:35.600 pitch variations. Now this extends to impairments in musical memory 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.600 and recognition, as well as what we traditionally think of 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.720 his tone deafness as like bad singing or the inability 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:46.160 to tap in time with music. Right um, everybody's right 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:49.040 now is probably thinking of like the person who I 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:51.880 don't know was inquired or something that they just couldn't 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:56.200 hit the notes. Yeah um. Some literature also refers to 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:02.640 a musia as dismelodia or dismusia, but the term amusia 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.600 is generally agreed to be preferable because it acknowledges the 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:11.600 possibility that there exists as many forms of congenital amusias 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.880 as there are forms of acquired amusias. And what I 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.320 mean by that is accidental brain damage. So you can 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:22.160 hurt yourself a variety of ways that will also produce 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:28.560 this effect. Now, to clarify, congenital means present from birth, 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:32.360 but it is possible to acquire a musia through brain 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.520 damage in life. The very first study that looked at 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:37.840 this was done in eighteen seventy eight by a guy 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:41.120 named Grant Allen, and he was investigating a thirty year 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:45.240 old man with a neurological lesion that gave him this, 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.840 as he referred to it, then severe musical handicap um. 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.440 And maybe some of you out there wondering right now, 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:55.120 like I can relate to this, is this me well, 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:57.720 it could be a recent study found that out of 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:00.760 a hundred people who self declared them selves as having 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:06.439 a handicap for music, only twenty two so actually exhibited 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.879 the traits of a musea after they were tested with 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.879 a formal questionnaire. And the way that this questionnaire worked. 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:17.800 It tested your aptitude for scale, interval and contour information, 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:23.400 as well as melodic organization dimension, rhythm and meter, and 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:29.920 temporal organization dimension. They also tested memory recognition ability connected 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:34.399 to music. Now, those who are tone deaf are generally 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.440 unable to hear the differences in pitch and tone that 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.040 the rest of us here, we joke about this, right, 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.640 you know that there's always like uh and I imagine 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.359 with like movies like Pitch Perfect or TV shows like Glee, like, 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.080 there must be tons of joke about jokes about tone Deafnessily, 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.800 it seems like every long running show ever has had 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.359 at least an episode where oh, it's the person who 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:55.639 can't sing, but they don't realize they can't sing us. 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:57.320 So it's a common enough of a thing that it 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:59.359 shows up in some pop culture narrative and we all 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:03.480 recognize it. Uh. We use the phrase really to describe 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:08.600 people who don't understand simple communication strategies to write, like 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:10.960 like even outside of it, we've turned into this metaphor 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:14.640 for like, ah, well, he's tone deaf, so that's why 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.000 he doesn't understand what we're talking about here. It's not 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.320 even we're using it on a on a level beyond 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.560 like its actual medical application. Right. And it's most extreme though, 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:29.360 People who are tone deaf are unable to even perceive 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:31.439 music the same way that the rest of us do, 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.160 and it comes down to an actual difference in their 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:38.199 brain structure. Uh. And it's different from those like you know, 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:42.920 Robert and myself for whom music comes naturally. Okay, it's 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:46.440 actually defined as a learning disability. There's a team from 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:50.280 the University of Montreal who have first published an empirical 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.840 study on it, and that's their delineation. So, for instance, 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.639 most children, and I didn't realize this, but this is 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.320 probably a common experience for you. Most children learned to 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:01.720 sing at the same time that they're learning to speak, right, 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:04.760 so they're like kind of like singing words. Like I 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.160 was a babysitting a friend of ours four year old 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:09.399 the other night, and he was singing constantly, but then 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:11.600 he would just kind of talk to himself too. Oh yeah, 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.840 that's my experience with my son Bastion is um, there's 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:16.879 a lot of a lot of talking at this point 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:19.680 he's four, but there's also a lot of singing. He 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:23.639 will just burst into song about the silliest things, to 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:25.479 the point we're just like, all right, you just you 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:29.400 can't sing about butter anymore. Just just eat, don't play 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:32.159 with the butter, and don't sing about the butter for 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:36.439 just consumed butter. Well, that sounds like he is not 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.760 tone deaf, because tone deaf children don't do this singing 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.840 when they're younger. Uh. And this is where this this 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.600 woman seems to be like the expert on this, Like 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.000 every study I was looking at, she was somehow involved 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.480 in Her name's Isabelle Perette's and that's when she gave 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:55.879 it the official disorder, congenital amusia. Uh. It's innate in 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:59.840 these people's brain, the lack of musical perception. And it's 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:06.240 also hereditary. Uh. They found that congenital amusia is genetically transmitted. 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.600 Thirty of the people who have first degree relatives with 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:14.440 this cognitive disorder also have it. However, if you look 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.520 at control groups, only three percent habit and control and 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:22.719 control group families. However, congenital amusia doesn't seem to result 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:27.400 from any particular family environment. It's not like I don't know, Uh, 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.760 you can somehow connect it to like alcoholics or something 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:32.560 like that. Right, Like, there doesn't seem to be an 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:37.600 environmental source that's causing this. It seems to be genetic. Remember, 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:43.240 though genes don't specify cognitive function, they actually influence brain development. 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:45.879 So the next step that these researchers are looking at is, 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.639 let's identify the genes that relate to these neuroanatomical anomalies 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:55.720 that are found in the brains of people who have amusia. Now, interestingly, 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.840 that three percent control group almost lines up exactly with 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.679 what they've found to be the percentage of people in 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:04.960 the population who have it. Four percent seems to be 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.439 the number of people in general population who are a 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:13.280 music They grow up with normal exposure to music and 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.320 are otherwise capable of doing everything else everybody else does. 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:20.119 They're intelligent, they're educated. This only affects their ability to 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.680 recognize pitch and music, and it doesn't apply to language. 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:26.880 This is the really fascinating part. Right. The musics can 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:30.399 process speech as well as environmental sounds like I don't know, 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:33.639 like an animal's cry or something right, or voices. They 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:35.760 can understand all of that. They can even understand the 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:39.720 pitch changes in different languages like you know a little Chinese. 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:41.960 I spent some time in China. You know how important 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.000 pitch is the difference in words. They're fine with that, 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:48.679