This paper reports results from three experiments using the Musical Ear Test (MET), a new test designed for measuring musical abilities in both musicians and non-musicians in an objective way with a relatively short duration (b 20 min.). In the first experiment we show how the MET is capable of clearly distinguishing between a group of professional musicians and a group of non-musicians. In the second experiment we demonstrate that results from the MET are strongly correlated with measures of musical expertise obtained using an imitation test. In the third experiment we show that the MET also clearly distinguishes groups of non-musicians, amateurs and professional musicians. The test is found to have a large internal consistency (Cronbach alpha: 0.87). We further show a correlation with amount of practice within the group of professionals as well as a correlation with a forward digit span test.

• The mismatch negativity (MMNm) is reduced in musical contexts with high pitch uncertainty • The MMNm reduction is restricted to pitch-related features • Accuracy during deviance detection is reduced in contexts with higher uncertainty • The results suggest a feature-selective precision modulation of prediction error Materials, data and scripts can be found in the Open Science Framework repository: http://bit.ly/music_entropy_MMN

Emotions are often understood in relation to conditioned responses. Narrative emotions, however, cannot be reduced to a simple associative relationship between emotion words and their experienced counterparts. Intensity in stories may arise without any overt emotion depicting words and vice versa. In this fMRI study we investigated BOLD responses to naturally fluctuating emotions evoked by listening to a story. The emotional intensity profile of the text was found through a rating study. The validity of this profile was supported by heart rate variability (HRV) data showing a significant correspondence across participants between intensity ratings and HRV measurements obtained during fMRI. With this ecologically valid stimulus we found that narrative intensity was accompanied by activation in temporal cortices, medial geniculate nuclei in the thalamus and amygdala, brain regions that are all part of the system for processing conditioned emotional responses to auditory stimuli. These findings suggest that this system also underpins narrative emotions in spite of their complex nature. Traditional language regions and premotor cortices were also activated during intense parts of the story whereas orbitofrontal cortex was found linked to emotion with positive valence, regardless of level of intensity.

Auditory prediction error responses elicited by surprising sounds can be reliably recorded with musical stimuli that are more complex and realistic than those typically employed in EEG or MEG oddball paradigms. However, these responses are reduced as the predictive uncertainty of the stimuli increases. In this study, we investigate whether this effect is modulated by musical expertise. Magnetic mismatch negativity (MMNm) responses were recorded from 26 musicians and 24 non‐musicians while they listened to low‐ and high‐uncertainty melodic sequences in a musical multi‐feature paradigm that included pitch, slide, intensity and timbre deviants. When compared to non‐musicians, musically trained participants had significantly larger pitch and slide MMNm responses. However, both groups showed comparable reductions in pitch and slide MMNm amplitudes in the high‐uncertainty condition compared with the low‐uncertainty condition. In a separate, behavioural deviance detection experiment, musicians were more accurate and confident about their responses than non‐musicians, but deviance detection in both groups was similarly affected by the uncertainty of the melodies. In both experiments, the interaction between uncertainty and expertise was not significant, suggesting that the effect is comparable in both groups. Consequently, our results replicate the modulatory effect of predictive uncertainty on prediction error; show that it is present across different types of listeners; and suggest that expertise‐related and stimulus‐driven modulations of predictive precision are dissociable and independent.