Attention, Musicality, and Familiarity Shape Cortical Speech Tracking at the Musical Cocktail Party

Brown, Jane A.; Bidelman, Gavin M.

doi:10.1101/2023.10.28.562773

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 131 publications

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“…Musicians showed increased alpha-band auditory-motor connectivity with training block, whereas nonmusicians did not. In this vein, prior studies have also shown greater selective auditory attention for musicians in concurrent speech or "cocktail party" scenarios (Brown & Bidelman, 2023;Clayton et al, 2016;Strait et al, 2010), but see (Baumann et al, 2008), and there is also evidence that inhibitory attentional control is stronger and more efficient in musically trained individuals (Medina & Barraza, 2019).…”

Section: Musicians Displayed Stronger Modulation Of Alpha Activity Th...mentioning

confidence: 95%

Auditory-motor entrainment and listening experience shape the perceptual learning of concurrent speech

MacLean,

Stirn,

Bidelman

2024

Preprint

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Background: Plasticity from auditory experience shapes the brain's encoding and perception of sound. Though prior research demonstrates that neural entrainment (i.e., brain-to-acoustic synchronization) aids speech perception, how long- and short-term plasticity influence entrainment to concurrent speech has not been investigated. Here, we explored neural entrainment mechanisms and the interplay between short- and long-term neuroplasticity for rapid auditory perceptual learning of concurrent speech sounds in young, normal-hearing musicians and nonmusicians. Method: Participants learned to identify double-vowel mixtures during ~45 min training sessions with concurrent high-density EEG recordings. We examined the degree to which brain responses entrained to the speech-stimulus train (~9 Hz) to investigate whether entrainment to speech prior to behavioral decision predicted task performance. Source and directed functional connectivity analyses of the EEG probed whether behavior was driven by group differences auditory-motor coupling. Results: Both musicians and nonmusicians showed rapid perceptual learning in accuracy with training. Interestingly, listeners' neural entrainment strength prior to target speech mixtures predicted behavioral identification performance; stronger neural synchronization was observed preceding incorrect compared to correct trial responses. We also found stark hemispheric biases in auditory-motor coupling during speech entrainment, with greater auditory-motor connectivity in the right compared to left hemisphere for musicians (R>L) but not in nonmusicians (R=L). Conclusions: Our findings confirm stronger neuroacoustic synchronization and auditory-motor coupling during speech processing in musicians. Stronger neural entrainment to rapid stimulus trains preceding incorrect behavioral responses supports the notion that alpha-band (~10 Hz) arousal/suppression in brain activity is an important modulator of trial-by-trial success in perceptual processing.

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Section: Musicians Displayed Stronger Modulation Of Alpha Activity Th...mentioning

confidence: 95%

Auditory-motor entrainment and listening experience shape the perceptual learning of concurrent speech

MacLean,

Stirn,

Bidelman

2024

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Musicianship modulates cortical (but not brainstem) effects of attention on processing musical triads

MacLean,

Drobny,

Rizzi

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Background: Many studies have demonstrated benefits of long-term music training (i.e., musicianship) on the neural processing of sound, including simple tones and speech. However, the effects of musicianship on the encoding of simultaneously presented pitches, in the form of complex musical chords, is less well-established. Presumably, musicians' stronger familiarity and active experience with tonal music might enhance harmonic pitch representations, perhaps in an attention-dependent manner. Additionally, attention might influence chordal encoding differently across the auditory system. To this end, we explored the effects of long-term music training and attention on processing of musical chords at brainstem and cortical levels. Method: Young adult participants were separated into musician and nonmusician groups based on extent of formal music training. While recording EEG, listeners heard isolated musical triads that differed only in the chordal third: major, minor, and detuned (4% sharper third from major). Participants were asked to correctly identify chords via key press during active stimulus blocks and watched a silent movie during passive blocks. We logged behavioral identification accuracy and reaction times and calculated information transfer based on the behavioral chord confusion patterns. EEG data were analyzed separately to distinguish between cortical (event-related potential, ERP) and subcortical (frequency-following response, FFR) evoked responses. Results: We found musicians were (expectedly) more accurate, though not faster, than nonmusicians in chordal identification. For subcortical FFRs, responses showed stimulus chord effects but no group differences. However, for cortical ERPs, whereas musicians displayed P2 (~150 ms) responses that were invariant to attention, nonmusicians displayed earlier and reduced P2 during passive listening. Listeners' degree of behavioral information transfer (i.e., success in distinguishing chords) was also better in musicians and correlated with their neural differentiation of chords, assessed via pairwise differences in the ERPs. Conclusions: Our data suggest long-term music training strengthens even the passive cortical processing of musical sounds, supporting more automated brain processing of musical chords with less reliance on attention. Our results also suggest the degree to which listeners can behaviorally distinguish chordal triads is directly related to their neural specificity to musical sounds primarily at cortical rather than subcortical levels.

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Attention, Musicality, and Familiarity Shape Cortical Speech Tracking at the Musical Cocktail Party

Cited by 2 publications

References 131 publications

Auditory-motor entrainment and listening experience shape the perceptual learning of concurrent speech

Auditory-motor entrainment and listening experience shape the perceptual learning of concurrent speech

Musicianship modulates cortical (but not brainstem) effects of attention on processing musical triads

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