Long-term music training modulates the recalibration of audiovisual simultaneity

Abstract

To overcome differences in physical transmission time and neural processing, the brain adaptively recalibrates the point of simultaneity between auditory and visual signals by adapting to audiovisual asynchronies. Here, we examine whether the prolonged recalibration process of passively sensed visual and auditory signals is affected by naturally occurring multisensory training known to enhance audiovisual perceptual accuracy. Hence, we asked a group of drummers, of non-drummer musicians and of non-musicians to judge the audiovisual simultaneity of musical and non-musical audiovisual events, before and after adaptation with two fixed audiovisual asynchronies. We found that the recalibration for the musicians and drummers was in the opposite direction (sound leading vision) to that of non-musicians (vision leading sound), and change together with both increased music training and increased perceptual accuracy (i.e. ability to detect asynchrony). Our findings demonstrate that long-term musical training reshapes the way humans adaptively recalibrate simultaneity between auditory and visual signals.

Beta and Theta Oscillations Correlate With Subjective Time During Musical Improvisation in Ecological and Controlled Settings: A Single Subject Study

“…Recent reviews have shown considerable variation in task performance according to stimulus modality, inter-individual differences, age, as well as subjective states (Arstila and Lloyd, 2014 ; Wykowska and Arstila, 2014 ). Interestingly, musical training has been shown to influence audiovisual simultaneity judgments (Jicol et al, 2018 ), suggesting that long-term training modulate musician's ability to integrate audiovisual information concurrently. Recently, audiovisual simultaneity has been linked to phase resetting in the EEG beta band (Kambe et al, 2015 ).…”

Beta and theta oscillations correlate with subjective time during musical improvisation in ecological and controlled settings: a single subject study

“…Recent reviews have shown considerable variation in task performance according to stimulus modality, inter-individual differences, age, as well as subjective states [2], [63]. Interestingly, musical training has been shown to influence audiovisual simultaneity judgments [27], suggesting that long-term training modulate musician’s ability to integrate audiovisual information concurrently. Recently, audiovisual simultaneity has been linked to phase resetting in the EEG beta band [28].…”

“…Many other studies have used electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography, in order to get a finer temporal understanding of neuronal activity during improvisation. Studies have found improvisation related activity in the alpha (8)(9)(10)(11)(12) and beta (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30) frequency range [7,16,45] located in prefrontal and medial frontal areas, while other studies have examined brain connectivity [32,49] or power changes at the sensor level [14,42,43].…”

Musical Expertise Affects Audiovisual Speech Perception: Findings From Event-Related Potentials and Inter-trial Phase Coherence

“…This prediction by phonetically congruent visual information can modulate early processing of the audio signal (Stekelenburg and Vroomen, 2007; Arnal et al, 2009; Pilling, 2009; Baart et al, 2014; Hsu et al, 2016; Paris et al, 2016a,b, 2017). Insight into the influence of multisensory experiences, such as musical training, is only beginning to unfold (Petrini et al, 2009a,b, 2011; Lee and Noppeney, 2011, 2014; Paraskevopoulos et al, 2012; Behne et al, 2013; Proverbio et al, 2016; Jicol et al, 2018), and how this regulates audiovisual modulation in speech is yet to be understood.…”

“…Musical experience provides an attractive model for studying experience-based neural plasticity. Years of musical practice such as playing an instrument can enhance auditory processing (Zatorre et al, 2007; Strait and Kraus, 2014) and practicing a musical instrument offers a rich multimodal experience, integrating different sensory signals, including audio and visual information (Petrini et al, 2009a,b, 2011; Lee and Noppeney, 2011, 2014; Behne et al, 2013; Jicol et al, 2018). For example, a behavioral study by Petrini et al (2009a) showed that drummers, compared to non-musicians, were more sensitive to AV synchronicity for drumming point-light displays and can even perceptually replace missing visual information (Petrini et al, 2009b).…”