Preattentive Cortical-Evoked Responses to Pure Tones, Harmonic Tones, and Speech: Influence of Music Training

Abstract

Objective: Cortical auditory evoked potentials, including mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a to pure tones, harmonic complexes, and speech syllables, were examined across groups of trained musicians and nonmusicians. Because of the extensive formal and informal auditory training received by musicians throughout their lifespan, it was predicted that these electrophysiological indicators of preattentive pitch discrimination and involuntary attention change would distinguish musicians from nonmusicians and provide insight regarding the influence of auditory training and experience on central auditory function.Design: A total of 102 (67 trained musicians, 35 nonmusicians) righthanded young women with normal hearing participated in three auditory stimulus conditions: pure tones (25 musicians/15 nonmusicians), harmonic tones (42 musicians/20 nonmusicians), and speech syllables (26 musicians/15 nonmusicians). Pure tone and harmonic tone stimuli were presented in multideviant oddball paradigms designed to elicit MMN and P3a. Each paradigm included one standard and two infrequently occurring deviants. For the pure tone condition, the standard pure tone was 1000 Hz, and the two deviant tones differed in frequency from the standard by either 1.5% (1015 Hz) or 6% (1060 Hz). The harmonic tone complexes were digitally created and contained a fundamental frequency (F0) and three harmonics. The amplitude of each harmonic was divided by its harmonic number to create a natural amplitude contour in the frequency spectrum. The standard tone was G4 (F0 ϭ 392 Hz), and the two deviant tones differed in fundamental frequency from the standard by 1.5% (F0 ϭ 386 Hz) or 6% (F0 ϭ 370 Hz). The fundamental frequencies of the harmonic tones occur within the average female vocal range. The third condition to elicit MMN and P3a was designed for the presentation of speech syllables (/ba/ and /da/) and was structured as a traditional oddball paradigm (one standard/one infrequent deviant). Each speech stimulus was presented as a standard and a deviant in separate blocks. P1-N1-P2 was elicited before each oddball task by presenting each auditory stimulus alone in single blocks. All cortical auditory evoked potentials were recorded in a passive listening condition.Results: Incidental findings revealed that musicians had longer P1 latencies for pure tones and smaller P1 amplitudes for harmonic tones than nonmusicians. There were no P1 group differences for speech stimuli. Musicians compared with nonmusicians had shorter MMN latencies for all deviances (harmonic tones, pure tones, and speech). Musicians had shorter P3a latencies to harmonic tones and speech but not to pure tones. MMN and P3a amplitude were modulated by deviant frequency but not by group membership. Conclusions:Formally trained musicians compared with nonmusicians showed more efficient neural detection of pure tones and harmonic tones; demonstrated superior auditory sensory-memory traces for acoustic features of pure tones, harmonic tones, and speech; and revealed enhanced sensitivity to...

The Investigation of Cortical Auditory Evoked Potentials Responses in Young Adults Having Musical Education

“…In the literature, there are studies reporting latency differences (9,3,17). Musacchia et al (3) found P1 and N1 peaks earlier in the musician group.…”

Music training enhances the rapid plasticity of P3a/P3b event-related brain potentials for unattended and attended target sounds

“…In rhythmically trained musicians, P3b latencies were shorter for irregular sound omissions in rhythmic contexts (Jongsma, Desain, & Honing, 2004). Similarly, P3a latencies for pitch deviant sounds were shorter when musically trained participants were asked to ignore sounds (Nikjeh et al, 2009). These findings indicate stronger, faster involuntary attention switching (P3a) and enhanced matching of the working memory trace (P3b) to relevant target sounds in musicians.…”

“…Sounds were presented in an oddball paradigm in which infrequently presented deviant target sounds were interspersed among frequently presented standard sounds. On the basis of previous studies of P3a and P3b potentials in musicians (Nikjeh et al, 2009;Tervaniemi et al, 2005;Vuust et al, 2009), we hypothesized that auditory perceptual learning, as indicated by rapid plasticity changes of the P3a/P3b for deviating target sounds during a single experimental session, would differ between musicians and nonmusicians. In some studies, music training enhanced only P3b responses during attentive discrimination tasks, and not P3a responses to unattended sounds (Besson & Faïta, 1995;Tervaniemi et al, 2005).…”

“…In this study, we focused on P3a findings for target deviant sounds. For example, P3b responses were greater in musicians asked to listen for pitch deviants (for late positivity results, see Besson & Faïta, 1995; for the P3b specifically, see Nikjeh, Lister, & Frisch, 2009;Tervaniemi, Just, Koelsch, Widmann, & Schröger, 2005), rhythmic irregularities (Vuust, Ostergaard, Pallesen, Bailey, & Roepstorff, 2009), and sound location deviants (Nager, Kohlmetz, Altenmüller, RodriguezFornells, & Münte, 2003). In rhythmically trained musicians, P3b latencies were shorter for irregular sound omissions in rhythmic contexts (Jongsma, Desain, & Honing, 2004).…”

The development of the N1 and N2 components in auditory oddball paradigms: a systematic review with narrative analysis and suggested normative values

“…The objective measurement of central auditory processing and integrity of final auditory pathway should not depend on just one component but on the presence of several ERPs (complex), reflecting progressive central sound processing and representation Näätänen et al 2007;Nikjeh et al 2009) and also preservation of neuronal synchrony encoding temporal information (Rance et al 2002;Tomé et al 2012). …”