A new Yale study finds that listening to harmonious chord progressions during face-to-face interaction strengthens brain activity linked to empathy and connection. The work could help explain why music is central to social rituals and inspire new therapies for people who feel isolated.
A simple, soothing chord progression may do more than set the mood. It can help tune the brain for human connection.
In a new study from Yale University, researchers found that listening to harmonically consonant chord progressions while looking someone in the eye boosted activity in brain regions involved in understanding and responding to others. Participants also said they felt more connected to their partners when the music played.
The findings, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, suggest that music does not just accompany social experiences — it may biologically enhance them.
The work grew out of an unusual collaboration between neuroscientist-musician AZA Allsop and neuroscientist and competitive ballroom dancer Joy Hirsch, both at the Yale School of Medicine.
The partnership came together naturally, according to Allsop, an assistant professor of psychiatry and a jazz artist. When he first learned about Hirsch’s research on group drumming and musical interaction, he saw an opportunity to bring his musical life into the lab.
“When I reached out to see if we could work together on a project focused on music, Joy was as excited as I was,” Allsop, the first author of the study, said in a news release. “As we drafted our new research, I really relied on my background in music production, theory, and performance to help shape things.”
Hirsch, the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry and professor of comparative medicine and of neuroscience and the senior author of the study, brought her own artistic experience to the table.
“AZA and I connected immediately, because of our shared love of music, our experience with music in one form or another, and our commitment to understanding how the brain operates under music conditions,” she said in the news release.
Together, they set out to test a basic question: Can certain kinds of music make our brains more ready to connect with other people?
To find out, the team designed a series of experiments with pairs of volunteers. Each pair sat across a table, facing each other, and was asked to maintain direct eye contact. While they did this, the researchers measured their brain activity using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, or fNIRS, a noninvasive imaging technique that tracks changes in blood flow in the brain.
Unlike MRI scanners, which require people to lie still in a noisy tube, fNIRS uses lightweight sensors placed on the head, allowing participants to interact more naturally.
As Hirsch explained, “Unlike MRI, this technique lets us capture brain images of people who are engaged in social activities,” making it especially useful for studying real-time human interaction.
During some trials, the pairs listened to consonant chord progressions — sequences of musical chords that sound pleasant and predictable, and are often described as relaxing. In other trials, there was no music. In others, the researchers played music in which the notes were “scrambled.” In that condition, the sounds lacked the familiar, orderly progression that listeners typically hear in Western music.
The choice of chords was intentional. The team focused on a progression that shows up again and again in popular songs and jazz standards.
“Part of our hypothesis was that certain chord progressions have a higher prevalence in the music of our culture because they’re doing something to our physiology,” Allsop added. “So, we used a progression that’s found very commonly in jazz music, pop music, a lot of Western musical language.”
When the harmonious progression played, the researchers observed stronger activity in brain regions tied to social perception, emotional processing and interpersonal connection. In other words, the parts of the brain that help us read and respond to other people lit up more when the music supported a sense of ease and predictability.
Participants’ reports matched what the brain scans showed. People said they felt more socially connected to their partner during the consonant music condition than when there was no music or when the notes were scrambled.
Hirsch noted that link between subjective feeling and brain activity was especially striking.
“One of the paper’s most important and unexpected findings was showing that one’s perception of connectedness to another person is directly related to the activity in these specific regions of the brain,” she said.
The study offers a possible biological explanation for something humans have done for millennia: use music to bring people together. From religious ceremonies and weddings to concerts and team chants, music is woven into social rituals across cultures. The Yale team’s results suggest that harmonious music may help coordinate and strengthen human relationships by priming neural systems that support empathy and shared attention.
That insight could have practical implications. The researchers note that music-based therapies are already used with people who struggle with social interaction, including some neuropsychiatric conditions such as autism and psychological conditions like social anxiety. Their work provides a potential mechanism for why such approaches might help.
“We’re hoping that our contribution will provide an evidence-based mechanism that shows how music actually enhances the neural systems that promote sociality,” Hirsch added.
For Allsop, who is a keyboardist and vocalist, the project bridges his artistic and scientific worlds.
“I’ve always been interested in how the different structures and languages within music can move people from an aesthetic standpoint,” he said. “At Yale, I’ve started asking that question from the biological perspective, too.”
While the research focused on a specific style of Western chord progression, it opens the door to broader questions. Do different musical traditions shape social connection in distinct ways? Could personalized playlists be used to ease social anxiety before difficult conversations or group events? And how might live performance, group singing or drumming amplify these effects?
Future studies will be needed to explore those possibilities. For now, the Yale team’s work offers scientific support for something many people feel intuitively: when the right music plays, it becomes just a little easier to look someone in the eye, feel understood and feel less alone.
Source: Yale University