Musicianship facilitates the processing of Western music chords—An ERP and behavioral study

Abstract

The present study addressed the effects of musicianship on neural and behavioral discrimination of Western music chords. In abstract oddball paradigms, minor chords and inverted major chords were presented in the context of major chords to musician and non-musician participants in a passive listening task (with EEG recordings) and in an active discrimination task. Both sinusoidal sounds and harmonically rich piano sounds were used. Musicians outperformed non-musicians in the discrimination task. Change-related mismatch negativity (MMN) was evoked to minor and inverted major chords in musicians only, and N1 amplitude was larger in musicians than non-musicians. While MMN was absent in non-musicians, both groups showed decreased N1 in response to minor compared to major chords. The results indicate that processing of complex musical stimuli is enhanced in musicians both behaviorally and neurally, but that major-minor chord categorization is present to some extent also in the absence of music training.

Distortion and Western Music Chord Processing

“…As MMN responses are elicited by detectable changes in the auditory stream (Näätänen et al, 2007), and P3a responses are elicited particularly by salient or unexpected deviants , Escera & Corrall, 2007, we expected at least MMN responses to be elicited by all chord contrasts. Additionally, based on previous findings (Brattico et al, 2009Koelsch et al, 1999;Putkinen et al, 2014;Tervaniemi et al, 2011;Trainor et al, 1999;Virtala et al, 2014), we expected generally facilitated chord processing as evidenced by larger and/or earlier MMN and P3a responses in musicians compared to nonmusicians.…”

“…The data collected during the first part of the recording session has been reported elsewhere, including mostly the same participants (Virtala et al, 2014). During the EEG experiment, the participant watched a self-chosen DVD movie without sound and was advised not to move or blink a lot and not to pay attention to the sounds.…”

“…In recent years, the MMN has been increasingly utilized to study processing of Western music chords in adults (Brattico et al, 2009;Tervaniemi, Sannemann, Nöyränen, Salonen, & Pihko, 2011;Virtala et al, 2011;Virtala, Huotilainen, Partanen, & Tervaniemi, 2014) and children (Putkinen, Tervaniemi, Saarikivi, Ojala, & Huotilainen, 2014;Virtala, Huotilainen, Partanen, Fellman, & Tervaniemi, 2013;Virtala, Huotilainen, Putkinen, Makkonen, & Tervaniemi, 2012). In these studies, pre-attentive readiness for major vs. minor chord discrimination as evidenced by MMN elicitation has been demonstrated in Western children and adults with and without formal music training, and tentatively even in newborns.…”

“…Music training and expertise have been associated with facilitated major-minor processing, as evidenced by enlarged MMN responses (Putkinen et al, 2014;Tervaniemi et al, 2011;Virtala et al, 2011Virtala et al, , 2014. Virtala and colleagues (2014) demonstrated that chord-MMN amplitude recorded in an ignore condition also correlated with behavioral detection accuracy, thus indicating that MMN amplitude can reflect perceptual skills.…”

Classification of familiarity based on cross-correlation features between EEG and music

“…MMN is a change-specific component of ERPs that has a peak at 150-250 ms after the onset of a deviant stimulus [7]. It has been shown that MMNs are elicited by deviant sounds in rhythmic sequences [8] and melodies [9]. Another approach is to measure an auditory steady-state response (ASSR), which can be elicited by periodically repeated sounds [10].…”