Electrical Brain Responses Reveal Sequential Constraints on Planning during Music Performance

Abstract

Elements in speech and music unfold sequentially over time. To produce sentences and melodies quickly and accurately, individuals must plan upcoming sequence events, as well as monitor outcomes via auditory feedback. We investigated the neural correlates of sequential planning and monitoring processes by manipulating auditory feedback during music performance. Pianists performed isochronous melodies from memory at an initially cued rate while their electroencephalogram was recorded. Pitch feedback was occasionally altered to match either an immediately upcoming Near-Future pitch (next sequence event) or a more distant Far-Future pitch (two events ahead of the current event). Near-Future, but not Far-Future altered feedback perturbed the timing of pianists’ performances, suggesting greater interference of Near-Future sequential events with current planning processes. Near-Future feedback triggered a greater reduction in auditory sensory suppression (enhanced response) than Far-Future feedback, reflected in the P2 component elicited by the pitch event following the unexpected pitch change. Greater timing perturbations were associated with enhanced cortical sensory processing of the pitch event following the Near-Future altered feedback. Both types of feedback alterations elicited feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P3a potentials and amplified spectral power in the theta frequency range. These findings suggest similar constraints on producers’ sequential planning to those reported in speech production.

Advances in the Neurocognition of Music and Language

“…As we will see, the studies follow two burgeoning trends in M&L research: First, they focused on common auditory processing of temporal regularities [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ] that are thought to promote higher-level linguistic functions [ 8 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ], possibly via mechanisms of neuronal entrainment [ 15 ]. Second, they explored top-down modulations of common auditory processes [ 16 , 17 , 18 ] by domain-general cognitive [ 19 , 20 ] and motor functions in both perception and production [ 21 ]. These topics were addressed using a broad toolkit of well-designed behavioral and computational approaches combined with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) or electroencephalography (EEG) in different cohorts of participants.…”

“…Similarly, the fMRI study of Tsai and Li [ 18 ] found that the strength with which an ambiguous stimulus was perceived as song rather than speech depended not only on the acoustics of the stimulus itself, but also on the sound category of the preceding stimulus. Finally, Mathias et al [ 21 ] show with EEG that pianists gradually anticipated the sounds of their actions during music production, similar to mechanisms of auditory feedback control during speech production [ 49 , 50 ]. Taken together, these studies suggest that the listening context, one’s own motor plans as well as statistical and domain-specific expectations may influence the top-down anticipation and perception of acoustic features in speech and music.…”

Effector-independent brain network for auditory-motor integration: fMRI evidence from singing and cello playing

“…We found that activity in pSTG was positively correlated with good performance, but activity in dPMC was not. Our interpretation of this correlation is that the increased activity in auditory cortex resulted from the absence of the typical inhibition of STG typically seen for monitoring of self-generated sounds (Bendixen, SanMiguel, and Schröger 2012;Sanmiguel, Todd, and Schröger 2013;Mathias, Gehring, and Palmer 2019;Christoffels, Formisano, and Schiller 2007). If participants were no longer linking the perceived sounds to their produced output, and were instead increasing their reliance on a forward model and on non-auditory sensory feedback, then it would follow that inhibition of auditory cortex would be weaker and activity in pSTG would be stronger as a result.…”

“…One such structure is the pSTG. It has been shown that pSTG activity is attenuated in anticipation of self-generated sounds (Bendixen, SanMiguel and Shroger 2012;Mathias, Gehring, and Palmer 2019;Christoffels, Formisano, and Schiller 2007), however studies have also shown that activity in auditory cortex is stronger when listening to sounds produced on the instruments for which one has the greatest expertise (Gebel et al, 2013), and is stronger for expert singers than for non-singers (Zarate and Zatorre, 2008), suggesting that expertise may result in enhanced auditory processing in this area (Reznik et al 2014). Another brain structure whose role is likely critical in sensory-motor mapping is the IPS, which is recruited for high-level pitch transformations even in the absence of a motor performance task (Foster 2010;Albouy et al 2017), but has also been shown to be mapped topographically according to the movements necessary to accomplish tasks like reaching and grasping (Culham andValyear 2006, Grefkes andFink 2005).…”

Spontaneous Melodic Productions of Expert Musicians Contain Sequencing Biases Seen in Language Production

“…We presented evidence of a domain-general sequencing bias influencing spontaneous melodic production, which has largely been documented in language production ( [12]; but see [14] for research examining music and language sequence execution). Sequencing biases, such as easy first, are thought to minimize the computational burden of language production via incremental planning.…”