Modulating Peripheral and Cortical Arousal Using a Musical Motor Response Task

We are conducting EEG studies to identify the musical features and musical interaction patterns that universally impact measures of arousal. We hypothesize that we can induce states of high and low arousal using electrodermal activity (EDA) biofeedback, and that these states will produce correlated differences in concurrently recorded skin conductance and EEG data, establishing a connection between peripherally recorded physiological arousal and cortical arousal as revealed in EEG. We also hypothesize that manipulation of musical features of a computer-generated musical stimulus track will produce changes in peripheral and cortical arousal. These musical stimuli and programmed interactions may be incorporated into music technology therapy, designed to reduce arousal or increase learning capability by increasing attention. We aim to provide a framework for the neural basis of emotion-cognition integration of learning that may shed light on education and possible applications to improve learning by emotion regulation.