How "Groove" Influences our Brain and Behavior

Post by Anastasia Sares

The takeaway

Making and moving to music is a deep-rooted human behavior. Recent research reveals that groove in music can stimulate reward networks in the brain, hold our attention, and increase our walking speed. Besides being a fascinating subject, the study of groove may lead to therapeutic applications in Parkinson’s disease.

What is groove?

What does it mean for music to have “groove?” In a survey, Janata and colleagues asked people to define the concept and to identify whether pieces of music had high or low groove. Besides “music” and “groove”, the most popular words in people’s definitions were “move,” “beat,” “rhythm,” “dance,” and “feel.” From this, we can understand that groove has something to do with rhythm and movement. The song with the highest groove rating was “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder. In a second experiment with different participants, low, medium, and high groove songs were played and participants either tapped along isochronously (a steady, regular beat), free-form (with whatever rhythm they chose), or not at all. Videos of these sessions were observed for spontaneous movements, like foot-tapping, and there were more of these spontaneous movements in response to high-groove music. This work established groove as a quantifiable concept in psychology.

Since Janata and colleagues’ influential paper, other psychologists have started picking the concept of groove apart. Witek and colleagues demonstrated that the feeling of groove was related to rhythmic syncopation (i.e. when sounds occur off the main beat) and that this followed a classic “inverted U” shape present in many cognitive and emotional phenomena—when there was very little syncopation the groove was rated as low, with more syncopation the groove increased, and when there was too much syncopation the groove was lost. Matthews and colleagues additionally showed that harmonic complexity (the kinds of notes and chords used) can increase the feeling of groove.

How does groove influence us?

Groove grabs our attention and induces feelings of pleasure and reward. Researchers have quantified this with different neuroimaging methods: for example, an MRI study revealed that more groovy music activated key brain areas associated with reward (nucleus accumbens, caudate, and medial orbitofrontal cortex). A recent study using pupillometry (measuring the size of the pupil in the eye) showed that people’s pupils stayed wide for longer when listening to optimally groovy music—this can indicate cognitive engagement, enjoyment, or general physiological arousal. Another study demonstrated that listening to groovy music while walking can increase the length and regularity of our strides.

What are the applications?

One of the major applications of musical rhythm in a clinical context is through a type of music therapy called Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation (RAS). This technique uses strong rhythms to help people with Parkinson’s disease initiate movements like walking. Further, synchronizing auditory cues with movements can help to improve gait, in individuals with Parkinson’s disease or other neurological conditions. Music may be more helpful than a simple metronome for this kind of therapy, and studying groove may help us understand what types of music are most effective for different people.

References +

  1. Janata, P., Tomic, S. T., & Haberman, J. M. (2012). Sensorimotor coupling in music and the psychology of the groove. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 141(1), 54–75. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024208

  2. Stupacher, J., Hove, M. J., Novembre, G., Schütz-Bosbach, S., & Keller, P. E. (2013). Musical groove modulates motor cortex excitability: A TMS investigation. Brain and Cognition, 82(2), 127–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2013.03.003

  3. Witek, M. A. G., Clarke, E. F., Wallentin, M., Kringelbach, M. L., & Vuust, P. (2014). Syncopation, Body-Movement and Pleasure in Groove Music. PLoS ONE, 9(4), e94446. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0094446

  4. Matthews, T., Witek, M., Heggli, O. A., Penhume, V., & Vuust, P. (2019). The sensation of groove is affected by the interaction of rhythmic and harmonic complexity. 29(January), 545–552. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0204539

  5. Ready, E. A., McGarry, L. M., Rinchon, C., Holmes, J. D., & Grahn, J. A. (2019). Beat perception ability and instructions to synchronize influence gait when walking to music-based auditory cues. Gait & Posture, 68, 555–561. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gaitpost.2018.12.038

  6. Matthews, T. E., Witek, M. A. G., Lund, T., Vuust, P., & Penhune, V. B. (2020). The sensation of groove engages motor and reward networks. NeuroImage, 214, 116768. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116768

  7. Spiech, C., Sioros, G., Endestad, T., Danielsen, A., & Laeng, B. (2022). Pupil drift rate indexes groove ratings. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 11620. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15763-w

  8. Ready, E. A., Holmes, J. D., & Grahn, J. A. (2022). Gait in younger and older adults during rhythmic auditory stimulation is influenced by groove, familiarity, beat perception, and synchronization demands. Human Movement Science, 84, 102972. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2022.102972