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Workaholic Questions

Twenty Questions: How Do I Know If I'm A Workaholic?

1. Do you get more excited about your work than about family or anything else?
2. Are there times when you can charge through your work and other times when you can't?
3. Do you take work with you to bed? On weekends? On vacation?
4. Is work the activity you like to do best and talk about most?
5. Do you work more than 40 hours a week?
6. Do you turn your hobbies into money-making ventures?
7. Do you take complete responsibility for the outcome of your work efforts?
8. Have your family or friends given up expecting you on time?
9. Do you take on extra work because you are concerned that it won't otherwise get done?
10. Do you underestimate how long a project will take and then rush to complete it?
11. Do you believe that it is okay to work long hours if you love what you are doing?
12. Do you get impatient with people who have other priorities besides work?
13. Are you afraid that if you don't work hard you will lose your job or be a failure?
14. Is the future a constant worry for you even when things are going very well?
15. Do you do things energetically and competitively including play?
16. Do you get irritated when people ask you to stop doing your work in order to do something else?
17. Have your long hours hurt your family or other relationships?
18. Do you think about your work while driving, falling asleep or when others are talking?
19. Do you work or read during meals?
20. Do you believe that more money will solve the other problems in your life?

If you answer "yes" to three or more of these questions you may be a workaholic. Relax. You are not alone. Many have found recovery through the tools of this fellowship.

Appears as pages 4-5 in the W.A. Book of Recovery.This literature is also available as a downloadable file (in PDF)

How to Improve Reading Comprehension

How to Improve Reading Comprehension
Key Point
Good reading means building frameworks for connecting words to thoughts.

The Purpose of Reading.

The purpose of reading is to connect the ideas on the page to what you already know. If you don't know anything about a subject, then pouring words of text into your mind is like pouring water into your hand. You don't retain much. For example, try reading these numbers:

7516324 This is hard to read and remember.
751-6324 This is easier because of chunking.
123-4567 This is easy to read because of prior knowledge and structure.

Similarly, if you like sports, then reading the sports page is easy. You have a framework in your mind for reading, understanding and storing information.

Improving Comprehension.

Reading comprehension requires motivation, mental frameworks for holding ideas, concentration and good study techniques. Here are some suggestions.


Develop a broad background.
Broaden your background knowledge by reading newspapers, magazines and books. Become interested in world events.

Know the structure of paragraphs.
Good writers construct paragraphs that have a beginning, middle and end. Often, the first sentence will give an overview that helps provide a framework for adding details. Also, look for transitional words, phrases or paragraphs that change the topic.

Identify the type of reasoning.
Does the author use cause and effect reasoning, hypothesis, model building, induction or deduction, systems thinking?  

Anticipate and predict.
Really smart readers try to anticipate the author and predict future ideas and questions. If you're right, this reinforces your understanding. If you're wrong, you make adjustments quicker.

Look for the method of organization.
Is the material organized chronologically, serially, logically, functionally, spatially or hierarchical? See section 10 for more examples on organization.

Create motivation and interest.
Preview material, ask questions, discuss ideas with classmates. The stronger your interest, the greater your comprehension.

Pay attention to supporting cues.
Study pictures, graphs and headings. Read the first and last paragraph in a chapter, or the first sentence in each section.

Highlight, summarize and review.
Just reading a book once is not enough. To develop a deeper understanding, you have to highlight, summarize and review important ideas.

Build a good vocabulary.
For most educated people, this is a lifetime project. The best way to improve your vocabulary is to use a dictionary regularly. You might carry around a pocket dictionary and use it to look up new words. Or, you can keep a list of words to look up at the end of the day. Concentrate on roots, prefixes and endings.

Use a systematic reading technique like SQR3.
Develop a systematic reading style, like the SQR3 method and make adjustments to it, depending on priorities and purpose. The SQR3 steps include Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review.  

Monitor effectiveness.
Good readers monitor their attention, concentration and effectiveness. They quickly recognize if they've missed an idea and backup to reread it.

Should You Vocalize Words?

Yes, although it is faster to form words in your mind rather than on your lips or throat. Eye motion is also important. Frequent backtracking slows you down considerably.
 

from http://www.marin.edu/~don/study/7read.html

Job Quotes

Job Quotes and Sayings

1. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
2. The person who knows how……. will always have a job, but the person who knows why….. will be the boss.
3. Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
4. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Work, continuous work and hard work, is the only way to accomplish results that last.
5. Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.
6. Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.
7. Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.
8. The secret of success is doing well the job close at hand.
9. It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn’t.
10. Do your job and demand your compensation….but in that order.
11. Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.
12. One important key to success is self confidence. An important key to self confidence is preparation.
13. The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.
14. Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
15. Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.
16. A job done well stays well done forever.
17. The only job where you start at the top, is digging a hole.
18. Many people quit looking for work when they find a job.
19. If you have a job without any aggravations, you don’t have a job.
20. No one can help you in holding a good job except Old Man You.
21. We’re supposed to be perfect our first day on the job and then show constant improvement.
22. Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.
23. There is no indispensable man.
24. A judge is a student who marks his own exam paper.
25. You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.
26. We pretend to work because they pretend to pay us.
27. Garden: A thing of beauty and a job forever
28. Sometimes the fool who rushes in gets the job done.
29. My job is never work….the only time it seems like work is when I’d rather be doing something else.
30. You hate your job ? Why didn’t you say so ? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.
31. I have never liked working. To me a job is an invasion of privacy.
32. There’s no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love. There is only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen.

from CoolNSmart.com

Money Quotes

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry [economy].” – William Shakespeare

These three articles I found to be particularly interesting. There were other great ones in the bunch, but these three tickled my fancy  .

• Paul from FiscalGeek presents How to Make Your Own Air Conditioner, and says, “For the MacGyver types out there, make your own Air Conditioner with a cooler, copper tubing, a cooler and an aquarium pump.”
• Dorian Wales from The Personal Financier presents Buy on the Rumor – Sell on the News: Our Psychology at Work, and says, “A counter intuitive rule of thumb explained”
• Matt Jabs from Debt Free Adventure presents The Whole Armor of Personal Finance, and says, “Ephesians 6:10-18 outlines a powerful and encouraging passage of scripture that deals with The Whole Armor of God. In it Paul reminds the reader that the Christian battle is not one of flesh and blood, but of principalities, powers, the rulers of this world, and wickedness in high places.

Budgeting

“A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.” – Jonathan Swift

• The Incidental Economist presents Budget Tracking and Projections (with Quicken Tricks), and says, “This is the third post in my eight-post series on investment planning. It is about how to use a budget for tracking and projection. It describes how to implement these functions in Quicken.”
• Matt from One Million and Beyond presents The Fluid Budget.

Career

“Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.” – Groucho Marx

• Free Money Finance presents Five Steps to Branding Yourself and Growing Your Career, and says, “Actively managing your “brand” is one key way of growing your career.”
• Darwin’s Finance presents Top 10 College Degrees in 2009 with Massive Demand , and says, “The Top 10 Highest Paying college degrees for new graduates. There’s an interesting pattern in this year’s hottest degrees since the Wall Street meltdown. “
• Modern Tightwad presents Unemployment Ambivalence.

Credit and Debt

“Creditors have better memories than debtors.” – Benjamin Franklin

• Jeff Rose from Good Financial Cents presents How to Review Your Credit Report, and says, “The thing most people don’t tell you is what you should be looking at when you do review the report, right? Well, today I’m going to help you go through your credit report.”
• J. Money from Budgets Are Sexy presents How The New Credit Card Legislation Affects You., and says, “Exploring the pros and the cons (at least in my opinion) of the new c/c legislation!”
• Funny about Money presents Too Much Debt? Sell Your House and Rent It Back!.
• Squawkfox from Squawkfox presents Credit Card Calculator: Reduce Your Credit Card Debt Faster, and says, “Use the Credit Card Calculator to crunch the numbers and see how paying just the minimum balance will cost you thousands and take you years before ending your debt.”
• Doughroller presents Balance Transfer Smackdown: 0% for 6 Months vs. 3.99% for 12 Months, and says, “Your take: What is the best offer–0% balance transfer for 6 months or 3.99% for 12?”
• Silicon Valley Blogger from The Digerati Life presents What Are The Best Credit Card Rewards Programs?, and says, “Here’s a lengthy evaluation of credit card rewards programs that can be helpful for those looking to pick up a rewards credit card! “
• The Smarter Wallet presents Credit Monitoring Services To Check Your Credit Report
• Ask Mr Credit Card presents LifetimeHabits and Credit Card Abuse.

Economy

“The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” – Ronald Reagan

• The Canadian Finance Blog presents The Recession Is Over! No Wait, It’s Not, and says, “Mixed messages about the recession in Canada could hurt our recovery.”
• Tough Money Love presents The Continued Slow Deflation of the Housing Bubble, and says, “If some experts are correct, baby boomers will keep housing prices down for an extended period.”

Insurance

“There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?” – Woody Allen

• Jim from Personal Finance presents What is the Average Cost of Car Insurance for a Teenager?.
• Jason from Financial Updates presents 6 Basic Types of Insurance.
• Henry Stern from InsureBlog presents From the Mailbag: Life Insurance Times 2, and says, “Summary: InsureBlog’s Henry Stern answers a reader’s question about whether it’s okay to more than one life insurance policy.”
• Wojciech Kulicki from Fiscal Fizzle presents Pregnant? Consider Insurance and Legal Issues.

Investing

“The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket.” – Kin Hubbard

• Pinyo from Moolanomy presents Save, Invest and Borrow To Achieve Your Financial Goals, and says, “Overview of step #5 in Moolanomy’s Financial Success Plan. The step looks at various ways to accomplish financial goals — specifically, saving, investing, and borrowing.”
• D4L from Dividends Value presents Are REITs and Utilities Good Dividend Investments?, and says, “Dividend stocks. When you hear those two words what do you think of? Many people think of widows and orphans, along with their stereotypical investment in utility stocks. While others may think of maximizing income by finding the highest yielding stocks available like Real Estate Investment Trusts.”
• Alex from All Things Jim Rogers presents Jim Rogers Continues To Be Bullish On Commodities and China, and says, “he Jim Rogers interview with Bloomberg . According to Jim Rogers, the Chinese stock market has risen too fast and it might “collapse” has it has basically doubled off its lows.”
• Dividend Growth Investor from Dividend Growth Investor presents Reinvest Dividends Selectively , and says, “Reinvested dividends have contributed most all of the stock markets total returns over large periods of time. Some dividend investors automatically reinvest their distributions over time, which leads to compounding of their interest. Others do not re-invest automatically and instead wait for distributions to accumulate before adding onto existing positions or initiating new ones. “
• Bret from BretFrohlich.com presents The Dangers of Derivatives, and says, “Risky derivatives and securities were the primary cause of the Global Fianncial Crisis. Fortunately, there are new laws on the horizon to protect us in the future.”
• The Dividend Guy presents The Best Dividend Stocks In The World, and says, “There are a lot of investment choices out there, how about looking for the best of the best.”
• Alex from All Things Jim Rogers presents Jim Rogers Disciplined Investor Interview July 26 2009.
• Philip Brewer from Wisebread.com presents Optimize Your IRA and 401K.
• Andy from saving to invest presents Use Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) When Unsure About Which Stocks to Buy , and says, “Like many retail investors, last year’s investing experience has made me quite risk averse when it comes to putting all my money in a handful of stocks. However there is an easy and lower risk solution available – Exchange traded funds”
• The Dividend Tree presents IBM’s Successful Transformation, and says, “As a dividend investor, this is what I am looking for; a corporation that is willing to adapt, a corporation that does not want to live in its past, but wants to grow continuously by evolving.”
• TIPBlog.in presents How to Execute Asset Allocatin – A Yale Fund Example, and says, “The fund manager projects upfront what would be expected return and how much volatility is expected. How many of us attempt to project our expected return and volatility in a realistic way? “
• Paul Kamp from Don’t Quit Your Day Job… presents Go Home Already! Congress vs. the Stock Market, and says, “This article details the ‘Congressional Effect’, where many of the gains in the history of the stock market have comes when Congress is not in session. There is also an examination of political risk in general, analyzing two other studies: the outperformance of companies which make campaign contributions in a political cycle, and the benefits of having the Legislative and Executive branches under the control of opposing parties. The article is timely since Congress went on recess yesterday!”
• Banker Saver presents 4 Financial Tips To Weather The Mortgage Crisis.
• Helen from Affine Financial Services presents Comparing asset allocation: Schwab vs. Morningstar vs. Fidelity, and says, “If asset allocation is so gosh darn important, why do Schwab, Fidelity, and Morningstar deal with it so differently? “
• Kevin from No Debt Plan presents How Much Company Stock Should You Hold?, and says, “Should you own any company stock? Not normally, but there are a few exceptions.”
• ElizabethG from Modern Gal presents Investment Advice Among Friends.
• CJ from The Coin Jar presents Two headlines that overpromise and underdeliver.
• Sun from The Sun’s Financial Diary presents Broker Web-Based Trading Platform Comparison.

Money Management

“The art of living easily as to money is to pitch your scale of living one degree below your means.” – Sir Henry Taylor

• ChristianPF presents How to NOT get ripped off when selling your gold, and says, “Apparently there aren’t really any “standard” gold prices. One piece of jewelry was sold for $50 and the same piece was sold to a different place for $5. These are some tips to help you not get ripped off!”
• Joe Plemon from Personal Finance By The Book presents Case Study on Achieving Personal Financial Goals: Alline Davenport, and says, “This series on case studies will walk our readers through the process of discovering the short term and long term goals of my clients, formulating a plan to achieve those ends and then holding the client accountable to actually carry out the plan and thus accomplish the goals.”
• Paul from Provident Planning presents What Is God’s Provident Plan for a Christian’s Personal Finances?, and says, “God’s Provident Plan is His desire for each Christian’s personal finances – and it’s not a plan focused on making Christians rich, or how we can retire early, or the things we can do to make us feel good about ourselves and our money.”
• Peter from Bible Money Matters presents Training A Child About Money Online, and says, “Our society is becoming more and more ignorant of the basics of personal finance every year. It is up to parents to educate their children, and here are some resources to help them.”
• Deposit Accounts from Deposit Accounts presents Should You Take a 401(k) Loan?.
• Matt B from Financial Methods presents 11 Relatively Unconventional Ways to Make Extra Cash, and says, “These may not be the first thing that come to mind when needing extra money, but they work.”
• Studenomics presents College Scholarships- Is There Free Money For College Students?, and says, “A look at the interesting topic of free money in the form of scholarships and what you can do to improve your odds of getting free money this September.”
• Eden from Finance and Fat presents You Just Realized You’re Spending More Than You Earn: 4 Things To Do Today
• Banker Saver from Banker, Saver presents 4 Financial Tips To Weather The Mortgage Crisis
• Single Guy Money presents Carfax Reports May Not Reveal All Damage.
• Ray from Financial Highway presents The Power of Small:To Achieve Big Goals, Think Small, and says, “Take small financial steps to reach big financial goals.”
• Simon from Realm of Prosperity presents Prepare Yourself With My Lost Wallet Protocol.
• Mr. GoTo from Go To Retirement presents Maximizing Social Security Benefits, and says, “If you are over 40, it’s not to soon to plan ahead for maximizing benefits from Social Security.”

Real Estate

“Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.” – Henry David Thoreau

• Dan green from The Mortgage Reports presents How To Accept A Home Downpayment Gift From Family That Won’t Get Rejected In Underwriting, and says, “You’re you accepting a gift of cash to buy your next home, you need to know that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. You can’t just deposit your parents’ money into a bank account.”

Saving

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.” – Charles Dickens

• Michael B. Rubin from Beyond Paycheck to Paycheck presents Do Debit Cards Separate You From Your Money Emotionally?, and says, “Do the perils of a credit card apply to it partner in plastic, the debit card?”
• MoneyNing presents How to Determine Whether an Alternative is Good Enough, and says, “Sometimes, an original is good enough but not always. Here’s how you can think about it.”
• PT Money from Prime Time Money presents Cash for Clunkers Program May Get More Funds – But is the Program Good for Consumers?
• Curt from PennyJobs.com presents Don’t Take The Bait: Why You Shouldn’t Trade In Your Car For $4,500 On a New One.
• David R. Lampsen from Personal Finance Analyst presents Seven Simple Ways to Save on Medical Expenses.

Other

“He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.” – Benjamin Franklin

• Tim from Talk with Tim presents WiseBread Author Will Chen Shares Practical Personal Finance Tips, and says, “Will Chen from WiseBread was kind enough to chat with me about personal finance and their new book 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget. “
• Tom Fisher from The FFS Blog presents Should You Pay Off Your Mortgage Before You Retire?.
• Ryan Irvine from The Elements of Lifestyle presents Crapitalism:It Pays to Have Discriminating Tastes, and says, “The small, passionate minority of consumers who really care about a product end up paying less for it. For proof, look no further than Starbucks or your office copy room.”
• Madame X from My Open Wallet presents Helping Out in a Health Crisis, and says, “Sometimes financial help from friends and family is about more than just money. “
• Miss M from M is for Money presents Cash as a Wedding Gift – Tacky or No?.
• JS from Smart Money Daily presents What To Do If You’re Fired, and says, “When you are terminated from a job, your first thought is probably “what do I do now?” and the answer to that question is to get out there and start looking for a better job.”

Reading Links

Reading Links

Reading Links List from TESOL:
http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Reading/

Takako's Great Adventure

http://international.ouc.bc.ca/takako/

Voice of America:

Chimp http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2007-11-19-voa1.cfm

Biology of Music

he biology of music
The Economist, February 12th - 18th, 2000
Music may soothe the troubled breast. It might even be the food of love. But how does it cast its spell? Romantics can take comfort from the fact that science does not yet have all the answers. But it has some.

WHEN philosophers debate what it is that makes humans unique among animals, they often point to language. Other animals can communicate, of course. But despite the best efforts of biologists working with beasts as diverse as chimpanzees, dolphins and parrots, no other species has yet shown the subtleties of syntax that give human languages their power.

There is, however, another sonic medium that might be thought uniquely human, and that is music. Other species can sing (indeed, many birds do so better than a lot of people). But birdsong, and the song of animals such as whales, has a limited repertoire—and no other animal is known to have developed a musical instrument.

Music is strange stuff. It is clearly different from language. People can, nevertheless, use it to communicate things—especially their emotions. And when allied with speech in a song, it is one of the most powerful means of communication that humans have. But what, biologically speaking, is it?
Music to the ears
If music is truly distinct from speech, then it ought to have a distinct processing mechanism in the brain—one that keeps it separate from the interpretation of other sounds, including language. The evidence suggests that such a separate mechanism does, indeed, exist.

Scientific curiosity about the auditory system dates back to the mid-19th century. In 1861 Paul Broca, a French surgeon, observed that speech was impaired by damage to a particular part of the brain, now known as Broca’s area. In 1874 Carl Wernicke, a German neurologist, made a similar observation about another brain area, and was similarly immortalised. The location of different language-processing tasks in Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas (which are both found in the brain’s left temporal lobe, more or less above the ear) was one of the first pieces of evidence that different bits of the brain are specialised to do different jobs.

People whose language-processing centres are damaged do not, however, automatically lose their musical abilities. For example Vissarion Shebalin, a Russian composer who suffered a stroke to the left hemisphere of his brain in 1953, was able neither to understand speech nor speak after his illness—yet he retained his ability to compose music until his death ten years later. Conversely, there are one or two cases of people whose musical abilities have been destroyed without detriment to their speech. This shows that music and language are processed independently.

On top of this separation from the processing of language, the processing of music (like all other sensory abilities that have been investigated in any detail) is also broken down into a number of separate tasks, handled in different parts of the brain. As early as 1905, for example, a neurologist called Bonvicini discovered a brain-damaged individual who could identify the sounds of different musical instruments, and also detect wrong notes, but who could not recognise well-known tunes such as his own national anthem. A detailed examination of music processing, however, has taken place only in the past few years with work such as that done by Catherine Liégeois-Chauvel of INSERM in Marseilles, and Isabelle Peretz at the University of Montreal.

In the late 1990s Dr Liégeois-Chauvel and Dr Peretz examined 65 patients who had undergone a surgical procedure for epilepsy which involved the removal of part of one or other temporal lobe. That not only allowed the researchers to study whether music, like language, is processed predominantly on only one side of the brain, but also permitted them to investigate which bits of the temporal lobe are doing what.
Researchers divide melodies into at least six components. The first is the pitches (ie, the vibrational frequencies in the air) of the notes in the melody. The second is the musical intervals between the notes (the difference in pitch between one note and the next). The third is the key (the set of pitches to which the notes belong which, in a western key, is a repeating series of 12 for each “octave” in the key). The fourth is contour (how the melody rises and falls). The fifth is rhythm (the relative lengths and spacings of the notes). The sixth is tempo (the speed at which a melody is played). Dr Liégeois-Chauvel and Dr Peretz asked each of their subjects to listen to a series of short melodies written especially for the project in order to study some of these components separately.

The first set of experiments looked at the perception of key and contour. Each melody was played twice. On some occasions the second playing was identical with the first; on others, either the key or the contour was changed. Subjects had to judge whether the first and second playings were the same.

The results of these experiments showed that those people with right-temporal-lobe damage had difficulty processing both the key and the contour of a melody, while those with left-temporal-lobe damage suffered problems only with the key. This suggests that, like language, music is processed asymmetrically in the brain (although not to quite the same degree). It also suggests that if one hemisphere of the brain deserves to be called dominant for music, it is the right-hand one—the opposite of the case for language in most people.
The part of the lobe involved in the case of contour is a region known as the first temporal gyrus, though the site of the key-processor was not identified. In addition, those subjects who had had another part of the lobe, known as Heschl’s gyrus, removed, had difficulty—regardless of whether it was the left or the right Heschl’s gyrus that was missing—in identifying variations in pitch.

Dr Liégeois-Chauvel’s and Dr Peretz’s second set of experiments looked at the perception of rhythm. This time, the possible distinction between the presentations of a melody was that one might be in “marching” time (2/4, to music aficionados) while the other was in “waltz” time (3/4). Again, subjects were asked whether the two presentations differed. In this case, however, there was no effect on the perception of rhythm in any subject. That suggests rhythm is being analysed somewhere other than the temporal lobe.

Waltzing ahead


Dr Liégeois-Chauvel and Dr Peretz were, of course, using basically the same method as Broca and Wernicke—looking at damaged brains to see what they cannot do. But modern brain-scanning methods permit healthy brains to be interrogated, too. In 1999 Stefan Evers of the University of Münster and Jörn Dannert of the University of Dortmund used “functional transcranial Doppler sonography”, a technique that is able to measure the speed that blood is flowing in a particular artery or vein, to study the response of blood-flow to music. Their subjects were a mixture of musicians (defined as people who knew how to play at least two musical instruments) and non-musicians (defined as people who had never played an instrument, and did not listen regularly to music).

Once again, there was a bias towards the right hemisphere—at least among those with no musical training. In such non-musicians, blood flow to the right hemisphere increased on exposure to music with a lot of harmonic intervals. (The researchers picked a 16th-century madrigal whose words were in Latin, a language chosen because it was not spoken by any of the participants, and so would not activate speech processing.) In musicians, however, the reverse was true; blood-flow increased to their left hemispheres, suggesting that their training was affecting the way they perceived harmony.

When the participants were exposed to music that was strongly rhythmical (a modern rock band) rather than harmonic the response changed. Rock music produced an equal increase of blood flow in both hemispheres in both groups of subjects, confirming Dr Liégeois-Chauvel’s and Dr Peretez’s observation that pitch and rhythm are processed independently.

In France, Hervé Platel, Jean-Claude Baron and their team at the University of Caen have applied a second non-invasive technique, called positron-emission tomography, or PET, to focus more precisely on which bits of the brain are active when someone listens to a melody. Dr Platel and Dr Baron study people who are “musically illiterate”; that is, they cannot read musical notation. In these experiments the subjects were played tunes by recognised composers, such as Strauss’s “The Blue Danube”, rather than special compositions of the sort used by Dr Liégeois-Chauvel and Dr Peretz. Otherwise the method was similar—play a melody twice, and study the response to the differences—except that in this case each subject was inside a PET scanner at the time.

In general, the results from Caen matched those from Montreal and Marseilles, but because Dr Platel and Dr Baron were examining whole, healthy brains, they were able to extend the work done by Dr Liégeois-Chauvel and Dr Peretz. One of their most intriguing results came when they looked at the effect of changing the pitch of one or more of the notes in a melody. When they did this, they found that in addition to activity in the temporal lobes, parts of the visual cortex at the back of the brain lit up.

The zones involved (called Brodmann’s area 18 and 19) are better known as the site of the “mind’s eye”—the place where images are conjured up by the imagination alone. What that means is not yet clear, though the same two zones are also known, as a result of another PET study by Justine Sergent and her colleagues at McGill University, in Montreal, to be active in the brains of pianists when they are playing their instruments. Dr Baron’s interpretation is that when the pitches of a sequence of notes are being analysed, the brain uses some sort of “symbolic” image to help it to decipher each pitch, in rather the same way that the conductor of an orchestra lifts his arm as a symbol for what people think of as “high” pitches (those with frequencies corresponding to short wavelengths) and lowers it for “low” pitches (those with long wavelengths). That might help to explain why people perceive notes as high and low in the first place. (By comparison, most people have no sense that blue light is “higher” than red light, even though blue light has a shorter wavelength than red.)

A strange change from major to minor


Music’s effect on the outer layers of the brain—the temporal and even the visual cortex—is only half the story, however. These are the places in which the signal is being dissected and processed. The place where it is having its most profound effect is in the brain’s emotional core—the limbic system.

Music’s ability to trigger powerful emotions is well known anecdotally, of course. But science requires more than anecdote. So in 1995 Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, decided to see if the anecdotes were true. He asked several hundred young men and women why they felt music to be important in their lives.

Emotion turned out to be not merely an answer. It was, more or less, the answer. Around 70% of both sexes said it was “because it elicits emotions and feelings”. “To alleviate boredom”, the next most popular response, came a very distant second.

That music does, indeed, elicit emotions—rather than merely expressing an emotion that the listener recognises—has been shown more directly by Carol Krumhansl, a psychologist at Cornell University. Dr Krumhansl addressed the question by looking at the physiological changes (in blood circulation, respiration, skin conductivity and body temperature) that occurred in a group of volunteers while they listened to different pieces of music.

The ways these bodily functions change in response to particular emotions are well known. Sadness leads to a slower pulse, raised blood pressure, a decrease in the skin’s conductivity and a drop in body temperature. Fear produces increased pulse rates. Happiness causes faster breathing. So, by playing pieces ranging from Mussorgsky’s “Night on the Bare Mountain” to Vivaldi’s “Spring” to her wired-up subjects, Dr Krumhansl was able to test musical conventions about which emotions are associated with which musical structures.

Most of the conventions survived. Music with a rapid tempo, and written in a major key, correlated precisely with the induction of happiness. A slow tempo and a minor key induced sadness, and a rapid tempo combined with dissonance (the sort of harsh musical effect particularly favoured by Schoenberg) induced fear.

To get even closer to what is happening, Robert Zatorre and Anne Blood, who also work at McGill, have pursued the emotional effects of music into the middle of the brain, using PET scanning. They attacked the problem directly by composing a series of new melodies featuring explicitly consonant and dissonant patterns of notes, and playing them to a series of volunteers who had agreed to be scanned.

When the individuals heard dissonance, areas of their limbic systems known to be responsible for unpleasant emotion lit up and, moreover, the volunteers used negative adjectives to describe their feelings. The consonant music, by contrast, stimulated parts of the limbic system associated with pleasure, and the subjects’ feelings were incontestably positive—a neurological affirmation of the opinions of those who dislike Schoenberg’s compositions.

But perhaps the most intriguing study so far of the fundamental nature of music’s effects on the emotions has been done by Dr Peretz. With the collaboration of Ms R, a woman who has suffered an unusual form of brain damage, she has shown that music’s emotional and conscious effects are completely separate.
Ms R sustained damage to both of her temporal lobes as a result of surgery undertaken to repair some of the blood vessels supplying her brain. While her speech and intellect remained unchanged after the accident, her ability to sing and to recognise once-familiar melodies disappeared. Remarkably, though, she claimed she could still enjoy music.

In Ms R’s case, the use of a PET scanner was impossible (her brain contains post-operative metallic clips, which would interfere with the equipment). Instead, Dr Peretz ran a test in which she compared her subject’s emotional reactions to music with those of a control group of women whose temporal lobes were intact.

As expected, Ms R failed to recognise any of the melodies played to her, however many times they were repeated. Nor could she consciously detect changes in pitch. But she could still feel emotion—a result confirmed by manipulating the pitch, the tempo and the major or minor nature of the key of the various pieces of music being played, and comparing her reactions to the altered tunes with those of the control group.

A lot has thus been discovered about how music works its magic. Why it does so is a different question. Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist at University College, London, thinks that music really is the food of love. Because it is hard to do well, it is a way of demonstrating your fitness to be someone’s mate. Singing, or playing a musical instrument, requires fine muscular control. Remembering the notes demands a good memory. Getting those notes right once you have remembered them suggests a player’s hearing is in top condition. And the fact that much music is sung by a lover to his lass (or vice versa) suggests that it is, indeed, a way of showing off.

That does not, however, explain why music is so good at creating emotions. When assessing a mate, the last thing you should want is to have your feelings manipulated by the other side. So, while evolution should certainly build a fine, discriminating faculty for musical criticism into people, it is still unclear why particular combinations of noise should affect the emotions so profoundly. Stay tuned.