Enhancement of Auditory-evoked Potentials in Musicians Reflects an Influence of Expertise but not Selective Attention

Abstract

Instrumental tones and, in some instances, simple sine-wave tones were shown to evoke stronger auditory-evoked responses in musicians compared to nonmusicians. This effect was taken as an example for plasticity in the auditory cortex elicited by training. To date, however, it is unknown whether an enlarged cortical representation for (instrumental) tones or increased neuronal activity provoked by focused attention in musicians accounts for the reported difference. In an attempt to systematically investigate the influence of attention on the processing of simple sine wave and instrumental tones, we compared auditory-evoked potentials recorded from musicians and nonmusicians. During the electroencephalogram recording, the participants were involved in tasks requiring selective attention to specific sound features such as pitch or timbre. Our results demonstrate that the effect of selective attention on the auditory event-related potential (AEP) has a different time course and shows a different topography than the reproduced effect of music expertise at the N1 component or the previously demonstrated effect at the P2 component. N1 peak potentials were unaffected by attention modulation. These results indicate that the effect of music expertise, which was traced by current density mapping to the auditory cortex, is not primarily caused by selective attention, and it supports the view that increased AEPs on tones in musicians reflect an enlarged neuronal representation for specific sound features of these tones. However, independent from the N1–P2 complex, attention evoked an Nd-like negative component in musicians but not in nonmusicians, which suggests that plasticity also affects top–down processes.

Generality and specificity in the effects of musical expertise on perception and cognition

“…While the role of attention with respect to musicians' perception remains debated (e.g., Baumann et al, 2008; Koelsch et al, 1999), research has shown that musicians differ from nonmusicians in the way that attention modulates electrophysiological indices of auditory perception Strait et al, 2012b). Thus, attentional differences between musicians and non-musicians may account for group differences in the detection of potentially less salient acoustic cues (Strait et al, 2010;Strait & Kraus, 2011b;Fujioka et al, 2006).…”

“…While the role of attention with respect to musicians' perception remains debated (e.g., Baumann et al, 2008;Koelsch et al, 1999), research has shown that musicians differ from nonmusicians in the way that attention modulates electrophysiological indices of auditory perception (e.g., Tervaniemi et al, 2005Tervaniemi et al, , 2009Seppänen et al, 2012; see also Marie et al, 2011). Compared to non-musicians, musicians show increased N2b component amplitudes for attended intensity, frequency and duration deviances in speech and musical sounds (Tervaniemi et al, 2009), and significant reductions in P3b amplitudes when attending to subtle pitch deviances .…”

“…For instance, attention is known to modulate auditory detection (e.g., via attentional cuing to specific frequency bands; Mondor & Bregman, 1994; Justus & List, 2005;Larkin & Greenberg, 1970;Greenberg & Larkin, 1968), and attention can interact with the saliency of acoustic cues in auditory search tasks (Kayser et al, 2005). Nevertheless, recent data show that musicians can process the pitch direction of local and global auditory patterns more accurately than non-musicians, regardless of the direction of attentional focus (Ouimet et al, 2012).While the role of attention with respect to musicians' perception remains debated (e.g., Baumann et al, 2008; Koelsch et al, 1999), research has shown that musicians differ from nonmusicians in the way that attention modulates electrophysiological indices of auditory perception Strait et al, 2012b). Thus, attentional differences between musicians and non-musicians may account for group differences in the detection of potentially less salient acoustic cues (Strait et al, 2010;Strait & Kraus, 2011b;Fujioka et al, 2006).…”

Auditory Evoked Responses in Musicians during Passive Vowel Listening Are Modulated by Functional Connectivity between Bilateral Auditory-related Brain Regions

“…Meanwhile, there is general agreement that musical training has a profound influence on N1/P2 responses during both active (Marie, Magne, et al, 2011;Shahin, Bosnyak, Trainor, & Roberts, 2003) and passive (Seppanen, Hamalainen, Pesonen, & Tervaniemi, 2012;Baumann, Meyer, & Jäncke, 2008) listening conditions. The effects of intense musical training on auditory processing have been well documented in various cross-sectional (Baumann et al, 2008;Meyer et al, 2006;Pantev et al, 1998; and longitudinal (Chobert, Francois, Velay, & Besson, 2012;Hyde et al, 2009;Moreno et al, 2009) studies.…”

White matter plasticity in the corticospinal tract of musicians: A diffusion tensor imaging study

“…On the other hand, methods such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and magnetoencephalography (MEG) (e.g. Ohnishi et al, 2001;Baumann et al, 2008;Pantev et al, 1998) have been employed to study functional plasticity.…”