Musical scholars through the decades have been puzzled by the human behavior of seeking out sad music. This is the “paradox of pleasurable sadness”, where people seem to enjoy sadness portrayed in the arts but avoid negative experiences elsewhere. Emery Schubert theorizes that perhaps some individuals may have a dissociative response to negative emotions in music that stops the brain from feeling displeasure, perhaps only feeling aesthetic emotions such as “nostalgia, peacefulness, and wonder”. Read full article here
Societal Issues
AI Predicts Crime A Week In Advance With 90 Per Cent Accuracy
An artificial intelligence model built by Ishanu Chattopadhyay and his colleagues analysed crime data in Chicago from 2014 to 2016 and managed to predict future levels of crime down to the nearest 300 metres, a week before they actually happened. While extremely useful, this artificial intelligence has been shown to expose racial prejudice in law enforcement. Hopefully, as the study’s data and methodology have been made available for others to evaluate, these prejudices can be avoided in the next iteration. Read full article here
Merv
August 15, 2022
