Subjective experience of listening to favorite songs and Murottal Al-Qur’an in young adult women: a quantitative EEG case series

Introduction: Listening to music and Qur’anic murottal is a conscious auditory experience associated with beneficial health outcomes. Both activities share the same sensory modality called audition; however, murottal listening is additionally linked to spiritual belief, whereas music listening is not necessarily so, although both are reported to have favorable effects on health. The subjective, phenomenological aspect of conscious listening has rarely been examined alongside objective neurophysiological measurements.

Methods: In this descriptive case series, four healthy 19-year-old female participants underwent a fixed-order recording session that compared mean alpha-band (8–12 Hz) power during listening (their favorite song and murottal, 3 min each), with mean alpha power during an eyes-closed, resting baseline, expressed as a relative percentage change: (E − B)/B × 100%. This index reflects relative alpha event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS) rather than the classical event-related potential. Heart rate and unstructured subjective reports were collected concurrently. Results and conclusion Individual alpha ERD/ERS topography broadly aligned with participants’ self-reported mental states—relaxation, visual imagery, and concentration—during both music and murottal listening, with notable between-subject variability in hemispheric lateralization. Given the small, non-randomized sample and the absence of inferential statistics, these observations are considered as hypothesis-generating rather than generalizable and are intended to inform the design of a larger, counterbalanced study.