Melodic pitch expectation interacts with neural responses to syntactic but not semantic violations

Carrus, Elisa; Pearce, Marcus T.; Bhattacharya, Joydeep

doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2012.08.024

Cited by 43 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Music sequences induce a wide range of violation strengths (Pearce and Wiggins 2012) because the sequential events are not all equally likely (and hence not equally predictable). However, widely reported ERP studies (Besson and Macar 1987;Paller et al 1992;Miranda and Ullman 2007;Pearce, Ruiz, et al 2010;Carrus et al 2013) often limit the range of expectations' violations strength that are tested to severe violations because of the need for repeated stimulus presentations. One issue with this approach is that notes eliciting strong violations could be considered by the listener as production mistakes (e.g., a pianist playing the wrong note), thus the corresponding cortical correlates may characterise only a limited aspect of the neural underpinnings of melodic perception.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cortical encoding of melodic expectations in human temporal cortex

Liberto¹,

Pelofi²,

Bianco³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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SummaryHumans engagement in music rests on underlying elements such as the listeners’ cultural background and general interest in music, all shaping the way music is processed in the brain and perceived. Crucially, these factors modulate how listeners anticipate musical events, a process inducing instantaneous neural responses as the music confronts these expectations. Measuring such neural correlates would represent a direct window into high-level brain processing of music. Here we recorded electroencephalographic and electrocorticographic brain responses as participants listened to Bach melodies. We assessed the relative contributions of the acoustic versus melodic components of the music to the neural signal. Acoustic features included envelope and its derivative. Melodic features included information on melodic progressions (pitch) and their tempo (onsets), which were extracted from a Markov model predicting the next note based on a corpus of Western music and the preceding proximal musical context. We related the music to brain activity with a linear temporal response function, and demonstrated that cortical responses to music encode melodic expectations. Specifically, individual-subject neural signals were better predicted by a combination of acoustic and melodic expectation features than by either alone. This effect was most pronounced at response latencies up to 350ms, and in both planum temporale and Heschl’s gyrus. Finally, expectations of pitch and onset-time of musical notes exerted independent cortical effects, and such influences were modulated by the listeners’ musical expertise. Overall, this study demonstrates how the interplay of experimental and theoretical approaches can yield novel insights into the cortical encoding of melodic expectations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cortical encoding of melodic expectations in human temporal cortex

Liberto¹,

Pelofi²,

Bianco³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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“…The hypotheses of Koelsch et al are largely grounded in behavioral and electrophysiology studies that indicate an interaction between melodic and syntactic information (e.g., Koelsch et al, 2005 ; Fedorenko et al, 2009 ; Hoch et al, 2011 ). It is not known if these interactions are stimulus driven; a variety of tasks have been used in this literature, including discrimination, anomaly/error detection, (Koelsch et al, 2005 ; Carrus et al, 2013 ), grammatical acceptability (Patel et al, 1998a ; Patel, 2008 ), final-word lexical decision (Hoch et al, 2011 ), and memory/comprehension tasks (Fedorenko et al, 2009 , 2011 ). In addition, there is substantial variability across individual subjects, both functionally and anatomically, within Broca's area (Amunts et al, 1999 ; Schönwiesner et al, 2007 ; Rogalsky et al, in press ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between the neural computations for speech and music perception is context-dependent: an activation likelihood estimate study

2015

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The relationship between the neurobiology of speech and music has been investigated for more than a century. There remains no widespread agreement regarding how (or to what extent) music perception utilizes the neural circuitry that is engaged in speech processing, particularly at the cortical level. Prominent models such as Patel's Shared Syntactic Integration Resource Hypothesis (SSIRH) and Koelsch's neurocognitive model of music perception suggest a high degree of overlap, particularly in the frontal lobe, but also perhaps more distinct representations in the temporal lobe with hemispheric asymmetries. The present meta-analysis study used activation likelihood estimate analyses to identify the brain regions consistently activated for music as compared to speech across the functional neuroimaging (fMRI and PET) literature. Eighty music and 91 speech neuroimaging studies of healthy adult control subjects were analyzed. Peak activations reported in the music and speech studies were divided into four paradigm categories: passive listening, discrimination tasks, error/anomaly detection tasks and memory-related tasks. We then compared activation likelihood estimates within each category for music vs. speech, and each music condition with passive listening. We found that listening to music and to speech preferentially activate distinct temporo-parietal bilateral cortical networks. We also found music and speech to have shared resources in the left pars opercularis but speech-specific resources in the left pars triangularis. The extent to which music recruited speech-activated frontal resources was modulated by task. While there are certainly limitations to meta-analysis techniques particularly regarding sensitivity, this work suggests that the extent of shared resources between speech and music may be task-dependent and highlights the need to consider how task effects may be affecting conclusions regarding the neurobiology of speech and music.

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“…Violation of melodic expectancy has been shown to elicit several characteristic EEG responses. Unexpected notes elicit an enhanced N1 component peaking at around 100 ms at fronto-central sites, compared to expected notes (Carrus, Pearce, & Bhattacharya, 2013;Koelsch & Jentschke, 2010;Omigie et al, 2013;. Unexpected notes in melodies also elicit late positivities (''late positive components" or LPCs) with a parietal or posterior scalp distribution around 300 ms post-stimulus onset, the characteristics of which depend on the degree of melodic incongruity (larger amplitude and shorter latency for non-diatonic incongruities compared to diatonic incongruities) (Besson & Faïta, 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Mean ERP amplitudes were computed for 9 regions of interest (ROIs): right anterior (RA) (F4, F6, FC4, FC6), mid anterior (MA) (Fz, FCz, FC1, FC2), left anterior (LA) (F3, F5, FC3, FC5), right central (RC) (C4, C6, CP4, CP6), mid central (MC) (Cz, CPz, C1, C2), left central (LC) (C3, C5, CP3, CP5), right posterior (RP) (P4, P6, P8, PO4), mid posterior (MP) (Pz, POz, P1, P2), and left posterior (LP) (P3, P5, P7, PO3). The following time windows were used for the analysis, based on previous literature (Besson & Faïta, 1995;Carrus et al, 2013;Regnault, Bigand, & Besson, 2001;Shahin, Bosnyak, Trainor, & Roberts, 2003) and visual inspection of the ERPs: N1 (80-130 ms), P200 (150-250 ms), and late positive component ('LPC') (500-800 ms). Mixed ANOVAs were carried out separately for individual time window with melodic expectancy (expected, unexpected), laterality (right, mid, and left) and region (anterior, central, and posterior) as within-subjects factors and age (younger, older) as between-subjects factor.…”

Section: Erp Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

That note sounds wrong! Age-related effects in processing of musical expectation

Halpern

Zioga

Shankleman

et al. 2017

Brain and Cognition

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Part of musical understanding and enjoyment stems from the ability to accurately predict what note (or one of a small set of notes) is likely to follow after hearing the first part of a melody. Selective violation of expectations can add to aesthetic response but radical or frequent violations are likely to be disliked or not comprehended. In this study we investigated whether a lifetime of exposure to music among untrained older adults would enhance their reaction to unexpected endings of unfamiliar melodies. Older and younger adults listened to melodies that had expected or unexpected ending notes, according to Western music theory. Ratings of goodness-of-fit were similar in the groups, as was ERP response to the note onset (N1). However, in later time windows (P200 and Late Positive Component), the amplitude of a response to unexpected and expected endings was both larger in older adults, corresponding to greater sensitivity, and more widespread in locus, consistent with a dedifferentiation pattern. Lateralization patterns also differed. We conclude that older adults refine their understanding of this important aspect of music throughout life, with the ability supported by changing patterns of neural activity.

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Melodic pitch expectation interacts with neural responses to syntactic but not semantic violations

Cited by 43 publications

References 43 publications

Cortical encoding of melodic expectations in human temporal cortex

Cortical encoding of melodic expectations in human temporal cortex

The relationship between the neural computations for speech and music perception is context-dependent: an activation likelihood estimate study

That note sounds wrong! Age-related effects in processing of musical expectation

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