Auditory N1 reveals planning and monitoring processes during music performance

Abstract

The current study investigated the relationship between planning processes and feedback monitoring during music performance, a complex task in which performers prepare upcoming events while monitoring their sensory outcomes. Theories of action planning in auditory-motor production tasks propose that the planning of future events co-occurs with the perception of auditory feedback. This study investigated the neural correlates of planning and feedback monitoring by manipulating the contents of auditory feedback during music performance. Pianists memorized and performed melodies at a cued tempo in a synchronization-continuation task while the EEG was recorded. During performance, auditory feedback associated with single melody tones was occasionally substituted with tones corresponding to future (next), present (current), or past (previous) melody tones. Only future-oriented altered feedback disrupted behavior: Future-oriented feedback caused pianists to slow down on the subsequent tone more than past-oriented feedback, and amplitudes of the auditory N1 potential elicited by the tone immediately following the altered feedback were larger for future-oriented than for past-oriented or noncontextual (unrelated) altered feedback; larger N1 amplitudes were associated with greater slowing following altered feedback in the future condition only. Feedback-related negativities were elicited in all altered feedback conditions. In sum, behavioral and neural evidence suggests that future-oriented feedback disrupts performance more than past-oriented feedback, consistent with planning theories that posit similarity-based interference between feedback and planning contents. Neural sensory processing of auditory feedback, reflected in the N1 ERP, may serve as a marker for temporal disruption caused by altered auditory feedback in auditory-motor production tasks.

Electrical Brain Responses Reveal Sequential Constraints on Planning during Music Performance

“…The span of sequence positions between an event’s correct (intended) position and its incorrect (error-produced) position is taken to indicate a producer’s range of planning, due to the items’ simultaneous accessibility [5]. Serial ordering errors during music performance tend to arise more often from closer sequence distances than from farther distances [7,8,9]. This tendency suggests that producers have increased access to events intended for nearer in the future compared to events that are intended for farther ahead in the future [8].…”

“…Musicians possess strong associations between musical actions and their sensory outcomes [17], which may explain why the perception of inaccurate auditory feedback during the production of auditory-motor sequences can disrupt production [18]. Mismatches between auditory feedback from musician’s planned movements [7] as well as nonmusicians’ planned movements can generate prediction errors, evidenced by an increasing error-related negativity [19]. Experimentally altering the contents of pitch feedback during music performance can disrupt the regular timing of key presses [20] and increase pitch error rates [21,22].…”

“…In electronic music performance, one can present auditory feedback that matches future keypresses, due to a simpler sound production apparatus. One study examined musicians’ neural responses to future-oriented altered auditory feedback as they performed tone sequences on a piano [7]. Occasional alterations in auditory feedback were presented that matched upcoming (future) events as pianists performed melodies from memory.…”

A cognitive stressor for event-related potential studies: the Portland arithmetic stress task

“…The differing physical properties of the positive and negative feedback may have also contributed to the observed differences. However, long latency ERPs, such as feedback-related potentials, are not drastically affected by physical properties of stimuli (e.g., Mathias et al, 2017), and negative feedback needs aversive qualities to maximize the FRN. The other fact suggesting physical properties of the feedback did not contribute to the FRN is that even the N1 response, that is more sensitive to physical properties of the stimulus than longer latency ERPs, was not different in the two feedback conditions.…”

“…It is important to note that the physical differences in the feedback are unlikely to influence the FRN given it is a long-latency ERP (e.g. Mathias, Gehring, & Palmer, 2017). Similarly, visual feedback was also provided.…”