Alpha EEG correlates of performance on a music recognition task

Abstract

EEGs were recorded over left and right occipital sites in 12 right-handed, musically naive subjects during the presentation of a series of piano melodies. The subjects were required to detect melodies presented earlier in the series. Sample epochs were subjected to a period analysis for alpha, theta, and delta waves, and EEG frequency was related to recording site, ear stimulated, and performance on the recognition task. The incidence of alpha waves by period analysis was found to significantly differentiate between positive and negative responses to the stimuli. No significant hemispheric lateralization or ear effects were obtained.Over the past several years, there has been an increasing interest in electroencephalographic indices of cerebral lateralization in the human brain. A typical research paradigm has involved recording the EEG over left and right hemispheric sites during the presentation of tasks thought to involve primarily the left or the right hemisphere. In these studies, the presentation of a musical task has frequently been used in an attempt to provide a task engaging primarily the right hemisphere (Davidson & Schwartz, 1977;Doyle, Ornstein, & Galin, 1974;McKee, Humphrey, & McAdam, 1973;Osborne & Gale, 1976;Ray, Morrell, Frediani, & Tucker, 1976). The use of a musical task as a "right-hemisphere" task rests upon work by Kimura (1964) indicating that, under conditions of dichotic stimulation, subjects show superior performance scores to stimuli presented to the left ear. Accepting the common view that contralateral auditory projections are dominant over ipsilateral pathways, this finding supports the position that the right hemisphere is superior to the left in processing melodic stimuli. Bever and Chiarello (1974) have reported that lateralization effects in processing musical stimuli can also be demonstrated under conditions of monaural stimulation and have suggested that the traditional left-ear superiority is observed only in musically naive subjects, with musically sophisticated subjects showing a right-ear superiority in music recognition tasks and hence a presumed lefthemisphere superiority.While a number of studies in the EEG literature have reported interhemispheric alpha differences consistent with the hypothesis that music processing involves the right more than the left hemisphere, This study was supported by Brandon University President's Research Grant 2374. Thanks are extended to Katherine L. Colquhoun for assistance in conducting the study. Requests for reprints may be addressed to the author, at Department of Psychology, Brandon University, Brandon, Manitoba R7A 6A9, Canada.Copyright 1980 Psychonomic Society , Inc. 417 no studies exist that specifically investigate the relationship between EEG measures of brain activity and performance on a music processing task. The existing literature reflects a situation in which traditional dichotic and monaural stimulation studies have monitored performance but not brain activity, while typical EEG research has recorded brain activity withou...

Effects of Music on the Recovery of Autonomic and Electrocortical Activity After Stress Induced by Aversive Visual Stimuli

“…In the present study there were no asymmetries in the frontal EEG bands of auditory stimulation conditions, although the frontal alpha recovered slightly better at the left hemisphere (F3) during music than WN. This may be partially attributed to the specific effects of music, because more profound effects of music should be observed in the right cortex given the data about functional brain lateralization and dominance of right hemisphere in music processing (Davidson & Schwartz, 1977;Walker, 1980). Thus, frontal asymmetry related to emotional experience could be masked by lateralized effects of music processing.…”

“…There are several studies systematically investigating the relationship between music and electrocortical activity (Altenmuller et al, 2002;Brattico et al, 2003;Breitling, Guentner, & Rondot, 1987;Davidson & Schwartz, 1977;Iwaki, Hayashi, & Mori, 1996Khalfa et al, 2005;Loui et al, 2005;Ogata, 1992;Walker, 1977Walker, , 1980. One of the findings was that music can evoke both calming and stimulating effects depending on the ongoing general cortical activation level of participants.…”