Composing : Musical tastes offer a window into how you think by Jim Fisher

Thanks, Brandi. Did you read the related post about music choice predicting personality? Actually, it's the other way round, but interesting. In general, scientists using EEG and fMRI studies are finding that most of our personality and beliefs are genetically directed, and that the thinking part of the brain is only a "moderator."

Music and Social Class is it. Here's a link to the story about the brain acting as moderator: http://scienceforwriters.blogspot.com/2015/06/passive-frame-theory-free-...

The interpreter is your conscious mind, and it's interpreting input from the 80 billion cells in the hemispheres and lobes of the brain, all of which are doing there things all at the same time. Sort of like a traffic cop at a riot.

That's what I understand from this and other studies I've read. New imaging technology is amazing. There's one researcher who is working on reading specific words from the way the speech centers of the brain light up when talking with the idea of freeing those trapped in their minds through illness or accident. Early days yet, but as time passes it's going to be pretty liberating for people with multiple sclerosis and similar illnesses.

Interesting about the musical tastes. I suppose there is a range on the spectrum....you can be 10% empathetic and 90% systematizer or 40/60, etc. Looking at the descriptions of the characteristics in the article, I decided I was in one category, but when looking the actual examples of music I discovered I like music from both the categories! Another very good question is what about musicians....does this apply to them too? I believe musicians in general have a very wide and eclectic taste in music, so how does that fit the model? Maybe it's not genre as such that we like or don't like, but something in how the music is constructed. For example, I don't like what I term 'rambling or wafty' music (personal preference)....it doesn't matter what genre. So I would think I don't like what the article terms 'mellow and unpretentious music', yet the article puts Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah into that category and I love that track!!,

Lately I've been working on an article about how the brain creates. It's fascinating. When a person starts a task, no matter what, being task oriented suppresses other neural circuits. Being analytical suppresses empathy which explains the actions of the boss in the movie, Christmas Vacation. It wasn't that he wasn't empathetic about what his cost-cutting would do to the Griswalds and other employees - his analytic thought process in essence turned off his ability to empathize with what his decision would do to his employees. He was acting naturally. About the music, I too like a wide range of music, so when I read through the study, I was thinking about whether I liked music in either category. And I do. I guess a general conclusion like that in the study doesn't mean you can't or won't like music across a range of genre's, but that you'll probably in general prefer one over the other. Understanding this sort of thing can be useful in crafting character. At the risk of sounding like a total science geek, which I am, I love science.