# Music self-projection in a minor mode

Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells, Clément François

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Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells, Clément François. Music self-projection in a minor mode. Physics of Life Reviews, 2025, 10.1016/j.plrev.2025.04.010. hal-05054227

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Music self-projection in a minor mode

Comment on: “*The Major-Minor Mode Dichotomy in Music Perception*” by Giulio Carraturo, Victor Pando-Naude, Marco Costa, Peter Vuust, Leonardo Bonetti, Elvira Brattico

Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells¹,²,³,⁴, Clément François⁵

1 Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology & Neuroscience Institute, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

2 Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain

3 Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Barcelona, Spain

4 Aix-Marseille University, Iméra, Marseille, F-13000, France

5 Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, LPL, Aix-en-Provence, France

Corresponding authors:

Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells, Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. arfornells@gmail.com

Clément François, Laboratoire Parole et Langage, Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, UMR7309, Aix-en-Provence, France. clement.francois@cnrs.fr
Carraturo and colleagues provide an excellent review and meta-analysis of the psychological and neurophysiological effects of major-minor mode perception, encompassing both qualitative and quantitative analyses. Their work also attempts to disentangle the internal (e.g., age, personality traits, musical training) and external (e.g., education, culture) factors that modulate major minor sensitivity. Importantly, the authors propose a model that addresses the potential therapeutic implications, a point that our commentary aims to explore further, particularly in the domain of mental health.

This review thoroughly discusses the possible explanation of how listening to minor-mode and per extension, sad music (Crowder, 1984), can elicit a rich emotional landscape in some cultures (e.g., Western music). Listening to minor and sad music has been associated to a large set of emotional consequences, ranging from sadness to the savoring of negative emotional states, the re-experiencing of strong emotions in a “safe environment” (e.g., through perspective-taking), affective empathy (with the music or the composer’s intention), its cathartic emotional potential, and the elicitation of complex, mixed emotions such as nostalgia (Sachs, Damasio, Habibi, 2015; Erola et al., 2018). Crucially, using a meta-analysis approach applied to neuroimaging data, Carraturo et al. highlight that the perception of minor musical modes may activate “classical” brain structures involved in emotional processing as well as other regions from the default mode network [see Taruffi et al., 2017] implicated in mental simulation and mind-wandering. Once these internal processes are triggered, they may elicit mental simulation mechanisms that allow individuals to experience these emotions.

Although understanding these processes require dedicated research, one common factor may rely on the capacity to engage with the mind of another being, particularly through perspective-taking and empathy. When music reactivates our own autobiographical negative emotional memories, a self-projection process may occur (Buckner & Carroll, 2007) allowing us to re-create and re-experience our internal emotional states at a particular moment. We propose that this mechanism is a form of an empathic internal simulation mode of one's own past emotional experiences. When the simulation is directed outward (towards others' emotions), perspective-taking aligns with classical theory of mind processes, where we simulate and potentially experience the emotional content of another person's mental state (Goldman, 2007; Schurz et al., 2021). Although it remains unknown whether minor modes specifically facilitate these internal simulation modes [see Taruffi et al., 2017 for positive evidence in sad music listening], such an observation would support the hypothesis that music evolved as a tool for social bonding (Savage et al., 2021) by enhancing group cohesion through the increased capacity to share emotions and, ultimately, information about others' mental states. In the case
of self-projection of our own past emotions, we might benefit from music to trigger this
simulation mechanism but directed towards our inner states. This mechanism may enable us to
create a certain distance (third-person perspective) that helps us recreate and perhaps reprocess
previous experiences in a psychologically safe way, probably exploring new and alternative
scenarios. Thus, as a side effect of the evolution of music and its relationship with empathy and
perspective-taking, this mechanism may have helped us reprocess previous mental states
through self-referential simulations.

At the clinical level, this process—potentially triggered by music and enhanced when
listening to sad (minor-mode) music, may prove beneficial in specific contexts. Similar to
techniques such as mindfulness or meditation, which facilitate self-distancing from inner
dialogue, feelings, rumination, and thought patterns (Kross & Ayduk, 2011), music may engage
simulation-based mental processes that support emotional decoupling when re-experiencing
affect-laden memories. A potential connection between the neural mechanisms involved in
mental simulation and those implicated in value-reward processing may be crucial in this
regard. Although further research is needed, one could hypothesize that internal simulation
mechanisms—similar to those engaged by default mode network activity and mind wandering
(Taruffi et al., 2017; Schurz et al., 2021)—interact dynamically in time with dopaminergic
reward-related processes, which in turn modulate the emotional valence of autobiographical
memories. Previous research has demonstrated that reward-related brain regions, such as those
linked to dopaminergic signaling, play a role in modulating the pleasure associated with music
listening (Ferreri et al., 2019). Furthermore, comparisons between non-preferred pleasant and
dissonant music pieces have consistently shown robust activation in the ventral striatum
(Koelsch et al., 2006; Mueller et al., 2015), suggesting that this region may encode signals of
positive value (in a form of "relief signals") related to the absence of negative emotional content
(i.e., a form of positive prediction error). The cross-talk between simulation and valuation
networks could partly explain the rewarding experience of not being overwhelmed by negative
affect when re-experiencing previous events in a self-distance mode (i.e., escaping from a
predicted unpleasant event). Such reward signals may contribute to the construction of complex
affective states such as nostalgia, which blends positive and negative emotional components.
This reward signal may also help explain the distinctive emotional savoring often associated
with listening to sad music. The possibility of leveraging these mechanisms for the alleviation
of mental health symptoms such as depression and anxiety is highly promising. We look
forward to future research that further investigates the neurophysiological and behavioral
impacts of sad and minor-mode music on emotional regulation and mental health.
## Acknowledgements

ARF has been supported by the FIAS fellowship Program, co-funded by the European Commission, Marie-Skłodowska-Curie Actions - COFUND Program, Grant n°945408. This work, carried out within the Institut Convergence ILCB (ANR-16-CONV-0002), has benefited from support from the French government (France2030), managed by the French National Agency for Research (ANR) and the Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University (A*MIDEX).

## References

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Crowder, R.G. (1984). Perception of the major/minor distinction: I. Historical and theoretical foundations. *Psychomusicology: A Journal of Research in Music Cognition*, 4(1-2), 3.

Eerola, T., Vuoskoski, J.K., Peltola, H.R., Putkinen, V., Schäfer, K. (2018). An integrative review of the enjoyment of sadness associated with music. *Phys Life Rev*, 25:100-21.

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