Electrophysiological Correlates of Absolute Pitch in a Passive Auditory Oddball Paradigm: a Direct Replication Attempt

Greber, Marielle; Rogenmoser, Lars; Elmer, Stefan; Jäncke, Lutz

doi:10.1523/eneuro.0333-18.2018

Cited by 19 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…The stimulus was a sinusoidal tone of 1046.5 Hz, which corresponded to the frequency of C6 (American notation). A single, fixed frequency was used, because the use of multiple frequencies introduces pitch changes, neural responses to which might confound the results by the mechanisms of neural adaptation and/or mismatch negativity (Tervaniemi et al, 1993; Elmer et al, 2015; Rogenmoser et al, 2015; Greber et al, 2018). With a repeated presentation of the note, the participants could perceive it as the keynote of the stimulus sequence, but it required AP to identify the specific note as we did not provide any information about the stimulus.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory T-Complex Reveals Reduced Neural Activities in the Right Auditory Cortex in Musicians With Absolute Pitch

2019

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Absolute pitch (AP) is the ability to identify the pitch names of arbitrary musical tones without being given a reference pitch. The acquisition of AP typically requires early musical training, the critical time window for which is similar to that for the acquisition of a first language. This study investigated the left–right asymmetry of the auditory cortical functions responsible for AP by focusing on the T-complex of auditory evoked potentials (AEPs), which shows morphological changes during the critical period for language acquisition. AEPs evoked by a pure-tone stimulus were recorded in high-AP musicians, low-AP musicians, and non-musicians ( n = 19 each). A balanced non-cephalic electrode (BNE) reference was used to examine the left–right asymmetry of the N1a and N1c components of the T-complex. As a result, a left-dominant N1c was observed only in the high-AP musician group, indicating “AP negativity,” which has previously been described as an electrophysiological marker of AP. Notably, this hemispheric asymmetry was due to a diminution of the right N1c rather than enhancement of the left N1c. A left-dominant N1a was found in both musician groups, irrespective of AP. N1c and N1a exhibited no left–right asymmetry in non-musicians. Hence, music training and the acquisition of AP are both accompanied by a left-dominant hemispheric specialization of auditory cortical functions, as indexed by N1a and N1c, respectively, but the N1c asymmetry in AP possessors was due to reduced neural activities in the right hemisphere. The use of a BNE is recommended for evaluating these radially oriented components of the T-complex.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory T-Complex Reveals Reduced Neural Activities in the Right Auditory Cortex in Musicians With Absolute Pitch

2019

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“…In EEG, this interference is reflected by a negative-going deflection around 400 ms after target-onset, which is referred to as the N400 (Kutas and Hillyard 1980;Zhang et al 2010). EEG has an excellent time resolution and has been insightful in capturing the early perceptual and cognitive processes underlying AP (Elmer et al 2013;Rogenmoser et al 2015;Greber et al 2018;Burkhard et al 2019;Leipold, Oderbolz, et al 2019). In the present study, the participants were instructed to judge as quickly and accurately as possible whether pictures (targets) were either pleasant or unpleasant by pressing one of two response buttons.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory aversion in absolute pitch possessors

Rogenmoser

Li²,

Jäncke

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Absolute pitch (AP) refers to the ability of identifying the pitch of a given tone without reliance on any reference pitch. The downside of possessing AP may be the experience of disturbance when exposed to out-of-tune tones. Here, we investigated this so-far unexplored phenomenon in AP, which we refer to as auditory aversion. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded in a sample of AP possessors and matched control musicians without AP while letting them perform a task underlying a so-called affective priming paradigm: Participants judged valenced pictures preceded by musical primes as quickly and accurately as possible. The primes were bimodal, presented as tones in combination with visual notations that either matched or mismatched the actually presented tone. Regardless of the prime condition, AP possessors performed more poorly in judging pleasant pictures and their EEG revealed later peaks at around 200 ms (P200) after prime onset. Their performance dropped when responding to pleasant pictures preceded by incongruent primes, especially when mistuned by one semitone.This interference was also reflected in an EEG deflection at around 400 ms (N400) after picture onset, preceding the behavior responses. These findings suggest that AP possessors process mistuned musical stimuli and pleasant pictures as affectively unrelated with each other, supporting an aversion towards out-of-tune tones in AP possessors. The longer prime-related P200 latencies exhibited by AP possessors suggest a delay in integrating musical stimuli, underlying an altered affinity towards pitch-label associations.

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“…As described above, group differences between AP and non-AP musicians in neurophysiological activity have been repeatedly observed during attentive listening. However, in several studies, the mismatch negativity, an ERP component evoked during passive listening in passive oddball tasks, did not differ between AP and non-AP musicians (Tervaniemi et al, 1993;Rogenmoser et al, 2015;Greber et al, 2018). Thus, the focus of attention could play a role in whether and to what extent subprocesses of pitch labeling and associated neurophysiological activations are automatically triggered by acoustic stimuli.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Suppression of Pitch Labeling: No Evidence for an Impact of Absolute Pitch on Behavioral and Neurophysiological Measures of Cognitive Inhibition in an Auditory Go/Nogo Task

Greber

Jäncke

2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Pitch labeling in absolute pitch (AP), the ability to recognize the pitch class of a sound without an external reference, is effortless, fast, and presumably automatic. Previous studies have shown that pitch labeling in AP can interfere with task demands. In the current study, we used a cued auditory Go/Nogo task requiring same/different decisions to investigate both behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of increased inhibitory demands related to automatic pitch labeling. The task comprised two Nogo conditions: a Nogo condition with pitch differences larger than one semitone, and a second Nogo condition with pitch differences of only a quarter semitone. The first Nogo condition tested if auditory-related inhibition processes are generally altered in AP musicians. The second Nogo condition tested the suppressibility of the pitch labeling using a Stroop-like effect: the two tones belonged to the same pitch class but were not identical in terms of tone frequency. If pitch labeling cannot be suppressed, the conflicting information would be expected to increase the inhibitory load in AP musicians. Our data provided no evidence for an increased difficulty to inhibit a prepotent response or to suppress conflicting pitch-labeling information in AP: AP musicians showed similar commission error rates as non-AP musicians in both Nogo conditions. N2d and P3d amplitudes of AP musicians were also comparable to those of non-AP musicians. The event-related potentials (ERPs) were, however, modulated by the Nogo condition, probably indicating an effect of stimulus similarity. It is possible that, depending on the context, pitch labeling in AP musicians is not entirely automatic and can be suppressed.

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Electrophysiological Correlates of Absolute Pitch in a Passive Auditory Oddball Paradigm: a Direct Replication Attempt

Cited by 19 publications

References 78 publications

Auditory T-Complex Reveals Reduced Neural Activities in the Right Auditory Cortex in Musicians With Absolute Pitch

Auditory T-Complex Reveals Reduced Neural Activities in the Right Auditory Cortex in Musicians With Absolute Pitch

Auditory aversion in absolute pitch possessors

Suppression of Pitch Labeling: No Evidence for an Impact of Absolute Pitch on Behavioral and Neurophysiological Measures of Cognitive Inhibition in an Auditory Go/Nogo Task

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