When the music hits just right, we tap our feet, snap our fingers and begin to move — impulses that are near irresistible.on neuroscience and psychological research into groove. Etani said many other countries have words capturing a similar idea, such as “nori” in Japanese, “balanço” in Brazilian Portuguese and “svängig” in Swedish.
“We need some regularity in order to be able to move along, but if it’s too irregular, then we’re not able to even predict where the beat is,” Witek said.Researchers theorize that one of the brain’s main functions is to predict what the world will throw at us and compare it with what actually happens.
“The idea is that we have this sort of fundamental drive to minimize prediction errors,” Matthews said. Being able to make accurate predictions of the world increases survival, he said. Moving to music — whether it’s clapping our hands, bobbing our head or dancing — is a way of adding a new sensory input that can minimize the prediction error by reinforcing the underlying musical time signature.that the process of minimizing prediction errors in music is intrinsically rewarding. “We’re drawn to something that is challenging and isn’t just perfectly regular.