By Grace Dawson

Many people have experienced the power of music to bring up memories and emotions from the past. In this episode of the Instru(mental) podcast which explores the relationship between music and psychology, host Brea Murakami recounts some of her personal experiences as well as talking about the science behind the musical phenomenons (the citations are included on the webpage for the episode).

Emotional contagion is an effect of music where people pick up on the emotion written in the music (which is a whole separate topic in and of itself) and mimic the emotion, letting it influence their own emotions. “Researchers think this strong empathic response happens because elements of the music are directly activating the emotional regions of your brain,” says Murakami.

Listen to the “Music and Emotion Induction” podcast here and take a second to browse some of the rest of the episodes at the main Instru(mental) page here.