Functional Specialization of the Human Auditory Cortex in Processing Phonetic and Musical Sounds: A Magnetoencephalographic (MEG) Study

Tervaniemi, Mari; Kujala, Anu; Alho, Kimmo; Virtanen, Juha; Ilmoniemi, Risto J.; Näätänen, Risto

doi:10.1006/nimg.1999.0405

Cited by 143 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Considering that the previous single-melody MMN studies did not find any laterality effects in either group (Fujioka et al, 2004;Trainor et al, 2002), the present result with polyphonic music could be related to Gestalt harmonic processing. The response pattern in nonmusicians seems to be consistent with MEG and PET studies showing a right hemispheric advantage in nonmusicians for chords changes to different keys (Tervaniemi, Medveded, et al, 2000;Tervaniemi, Kujala, et al, 1999). On the other hand, there has been no specific evidence for the left hemispheric advantages in musicians' MMN with respect to tonal violation processing.…”

Section: Mmnm In Musicians Versus Nonmusicianssupporting

confidence: 77%

Automatic Encoding of Polyphonic Melodies in Musicians and Nonmusicians

Fujioka

Trainor

Roß

et al. 2005

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

166

126

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Abstract& In music, multiple musical objects often overlap in time. Western polyphonic music contains multiple simultaneous melodic lines (referred to as ''voices'') of equal importance. Previous electrophysiological studies have shown that pitch changes in a single melody are automatically encoded in memory traces, as indexed by mismatch negativity (MMN) and its magnetic counterpart (MMNm), and that this encoding process is enhanced by musical experience. In the present study, we examined whether two simultaneous melodies in polyphonic music are represented as separate entities in the auditory memory trace. Musicians and untrained controls were tested in both magnetoencephalogram and behavioral sessions. Polyphonic stimuli were created by combining two melodies (A and B), each consisting of the same five notes but in a different order. Melody A was in the high voice and Melody B in the low voice in one condition, and this was reversed in the other condition. On 50% of trials, a deviant final (5th) note was played either in the high or in the low voice, and it either went outside the key of the melody or remained within the key. These four deviations occurred with equal probability of 12.5% each. Clear MMNm was obtained for most changes in both groups, despite the 50% deviance level, with a larger amplitude in musicians than in controls. The response pattern was consistent across groups, with larger MMNm for deviants in the high voice than in the low voice, and larger MMNm for in-key than out-of-key changes, despite better behavioral performance for out-of-key changes. The results suggest that melodic information in each voice in polyphonic music is encoded in the sensory memory trace, that the higher voice is more salient than the lower, and that tonality may be processed primarily at cognitive stages subsequent to MMN generation. &

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Section: Mmnm In Musicians Versus Nonmusicianssupporting

confidence: 77%

Automatic Encoding of Polyphonic Melodies in Musicians and Nonmusicians

Fujioka

Trainor

Roß

et al. 2005

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

166

126

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Thus, auditory areas might in fact constitute high-level specialization both within and between the auditory cortices, as proposed earlier by using more simplified stimulus material (Tervaniemi et al, 1999(Tervaniemi et al, , 2000Molholm et al, 2005). This line of reasoning is also supported by Patterson et al (2002), even within the music-sound domain.…”

Section: Duration Versus Frequency Deviance In Speech Versus Music Sosupporting

confidence: 55%

“…For instance, the bilateral superior temporal sulcus was more strongly activated by speech stimuli than by frequency-modulated tones (Binder et al, 2000) or by nonspeech vocal sounds Fecteau et al, 2004). Moreover, sound-change discrimination occurred in a different part of the auditory areas for chord and vowel stimulation (Tervaniemi et al, 1999) and for frequency and duration changes in simple tones (Molholm et al, 2005). However, to accurately map how the human brain represents our every-day sound environment, it is necessary to reveal the neurocognitive architecture in audition by using ecologically valid sound material.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

From Air Oscillations to Music and Speech: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Evidence for Fine-Tuned Neural Networks in Audition

Tervaniemi¹,

Szameitat²,

Kruck³

et al. 2006

J. Neurosci.

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In the auditory modality, music and speech have high informational and emotional value for human beings. However, the degree of the functional specialization of the cortical and subcortical areas in encoding music and speech sounds is not yet known. We investigated the functional specialization of the human auditory system in processing music and speech by functional magnetic resonance imaging recordings. During recordings, the subjects were presented with saxophone sounds and pseudowords /ba:ba/ with comparable acoustical content. Our data show that areas encoding music and speech sounds differ in the temporal and frontal lobes. Moreover, slight variations in sound pitch and duration activated thalamic structures differentially. However, this was the case with speech sounds only while no such effect was evidenced with music sounds. Thus, our data reveal the existence of a functional specialization of the human brain in accurately representing sound information at both cortical and subcortical areas. They indicate that not only the sound category (speech/music) but also the sound parameter (pitch/duration) can be selectively encoded.

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“…In adults, it is well known that the left and right cerebral hemispheres work differently for speech processing: The left hemisphere is more heavily involved in processing segmental contrasts in oneʼs native language, and the right hemisphere typically processes prosodic cues including affective prosody. Bilateral activation is seen in the processing of nonspeech or nonnative contrasts (Schirmer & Kotz, 2006;Jacquemot, Pallier, LeBihan, Dehaene, & Dupoux, 2003;Vouloumanos, Kiehl, Werker, & Liddle, 2001;Buchanan et al, 2000;Tervaniemi et al, 1999;Näätänen et al, 1997;Zatorre, Evans, Meyer, & Gjedde, 1992;Ross, 1981;van Lancker, 1980). If, as the reorganization hypothesis predicts, infants begin to process linguistically relevant speech stimuli differently from other auditory stimuli after they go through the reorganization, we may observe a shift in hemispheric dominance between the younger and the older infants as they learn that a particular contrast is linguistically relevant in their language during the first year of life.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%