Musical listening and kinesthesis: Is there an audio-vocal tuning system?

Abstract

Kinesthesis, the sense of muscular effort that accompanies bodily movement, is known to be important in musical performance. Less well understood is the role of the kinesthetic sense in musical listening. Recent observations that listening to music is associated with fast, subtle, pitch-related patterns of kinesthetic sensations that involve the ears, eustachian tubes, nasopharynx, vocal tract, and even muscles of facial expression challenges traditional accounts of auditory processing divorced from peripheral vocal input and suggests, instead, the hypothesis that auditory and vocal processing mechanisms rely on shared peripheral substrates in addition to shared central (brain-based) substrates. Furthermore, the presence of kinesthetic sensations that arise in response to novelty, following voluntary switches of attention and even in anticipation of familiar sounds suggests that the kinesthetic sense plays an important part in the listening process. Here, the significance of kinesthetic sensations associated with listening behavior is discussed within the context of recent MRI investigations (where pitch-related changes associated with vocal production are investigated under conditions that reduce articulatory and postural input to a minimum) together with evidence from a diverse range of historical and contemporary sources. Overall, evidence from a wide range of disciplines supports the hypothesis that auditory-vocal processing relies on shared peripheral substrates in addition to shared central substrates and suggests a framework within which kinesthetic vocal sensations may be further investigated. Wide-ranging implications arising from improved awareness of the part played by the kinesthetic sense in musical listening are discussed.

Relationships between everyday music listening habits and involuntary musical imagery: Does music listening condition musical imagery?

“…This prediction is strengthened by the finding that hearing music is experienced as rewarding (Mas-Herrero, Marco-Pallares, Lorenzo-Seva, Zatorre, & Rodriguez-Fornells, 2013; Menon & Levitin, 2005), which, we assume, can positively reinforce “hearing” music (i.e., imagining it). It is further supported by findings of overlapping neurological substrates between perception and imagery (Herholz, Halpern, & Zatorre, 2012) and studies indicating the presence of imagery or internal mimicry during music perception (Miller, 2016; Zatorre, Chen, & Penhune, 2007). Because music can act as a reward and is at the same time combined with other activities, a process of conditioning takes place, which goes beyond that of a simple association process: The conditioned stimulus (activity) that is paired with a rewarding (unconditioned) stimulus (the music) causes a (unconditioned) response (INMI).…”

Effects of Silence, Sound, and Singing on Melodic Dictation Accuracy

“…Students also may draw on kinesthetic faculties when listening and encoding during dictation (Buonviri, 2014a; Mikumo, 1994; Thompson, 2004). None of the participants in the current study exhibited overtly visible signs of kinesthetic strategies (e.g., silent trumpet fingerings or cello left-hand position), but research suggests that kinesthesia can play a role in music perception in much more subtle ways (Miller, 2016). It is possible that participants silently engaged vocal apparatus kinesthesia while listening or processing in Condition 1 (Lévêque & Schön, 2015; Miller, 2016).…”

“…None of the participants in the current study exhibited overtly visible signs of kinesthetic strategies (e.g., silent trumpet fingerings or cello left-hand position), but research suggests that kinesthesia can play a role in music perception in much more subtle ways (Miller, 2016). It is possible that participants silently engaged vocal apparatus kinesthesia while listening or processing in Condition 1 (Lévêque & Schön, 2015; Miller, 2016). However, given their relatively inaccurate singing performance in Condition 3, one would assume that such kinesthetic engagement would affect their scores negatively in Condition 1 (silence), especially because decreasing audible feedback appears to decrease singing accuracy (Beck, Rieser, & Erdemir, 2017).…”

Effect of processing fluency on metamemory for written music in piano players

“…In Experiment 3, we ruled out that the observed effects were influenced by differences between motor learning and reading (Schiavio & Timmer, 2016), as the additional motor component affected neither recognition performance nor either of the metamemory judgments. Thus, despite the importance of kinaesthetic considerations in music processing in general (Miller, 2016), they did not seem to matter in the current study. We should note that any motor representation can indeed affect music processing (Leman, Maes, Nijs, & Van Dyck, 2018), and what the fingers, hands, and arms do during playing can act as additional memory or metamemory cues.…”