Title: Effect of emotional changes induced by sounds on human frontal alpha-wave during verbal and non-verbal tasks

Authors: Masahiro Kawasaki, Mitsuhiko Karashima, Murako Saito

Addresses: School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, 2-1, Hirosawa, Wako-shi, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan. ' Department of Management Engineering, School of Engineering, Tokai University, Kanagawa, Japan. ' Research Institute on the Future Healthcare Policy, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan; Health Care Technology Management Research Center, 18-8-506, 2-chome, Kaminoge, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, 158-0093, Japan

Abstract: Our performance is often affected by temporal emotional changes. To improve the task-efficiency, we investigated the brain activity for the interaction between emotion induced by sounds and cognitive function, using the Stroop task with EEG measurements. The music leading pleasure increased the upper alpha-wave power of the frontal and parietal brain regions, relative to hearing the unpleasant white noise. The alpha activity decreased during the cognitive tasks. Interestingly, the frontal alpha suppression was reduced in the non-verbal task with the pleasant music and the verbal task with the unpleasant noise, like the task performance, which would indicate the interference between emotion and cognition.

Keywords: emotion; cognitive function; sounds; EEG; electroencephalography; alpha wave; brain rhythm; emotional changes; brain activity; music; white noise; cognition; non-verbal tasks; verbal tasks.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2009.024411

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2009 Vol.2 No.3, pp.191 - 202

Published online: 03 Apr 2009 *

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