Short- and long-term memory for pitch and non-pitch contours: Insights from congenital amusia

Graves, Jackson; Pralus, Agathe; Fornoni, Lesly; Oxenham, Andrew J.; Caclin, Anne; Tillmann, Barbara

doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2019.103614

Cited by 29 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…The contribution of bottom-up aspects of pitch encoding to account for the differences between musicians and non-musicians should be minimal. Indeed, the smallest pitch changes to be detected correspond to a 2-octave shift in the global task, and equal or larger than 400 cents in the local task, which is largely higher than the justnoticeable-differences (JNDs) typically measured with isolated pure tones in naive listeners 32 . Rather, the present results can best be understood in the context of "informational masking", in line with studies reporting JNDs of several thousands hertz when measured using random tone sequences varying in large frequency ranges 33 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Auditory local–global temporal processing: evidence for perceptual reorganization with musical expertise

Susini

Jiaouan

Brunet

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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The way the visual system processes different scales of spatial information has been widely studied, highlighting the dominant role of global over local processing. Recent studies addressing how the auditory system deals with local–global temporal information suggest a comparable processing scheme, but little is known about how this organization is modulated by long-term musical training, in particular regarding musical sequences. Here, we investigate how non-musicians and expert musicians detect local and global pitch changes in short hierarchical tone sequences structured across temporally-segregated triplets made of musical intervals (local scale) forming a melodic contour (global scale) varying either in one direction (monotonic) or both (non-monotonic). Our data reveal a clearly distinct organization between both groups. Non-musicians show global advantage (enhanced performance to detect global over local modifications) and global-to-local interference effects (interference of global over local processing) only for monotonic sequences, while musicians exhibit the reversed pattern for non-monotonic sequences. These results suggest that the local–global processing scheme depends on the complexity of the melodic contour, and that long-term musical training induces a prominent perceptual reorganization that reshapes its initial global dominance to favour local information processing. This latter result supports the theory of “analytic” processing acquisition in musicians.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Auditory local–global temporal processing: evidence for perceptual reorganization with musical expertise

Susini

Jiaouan

Brunet

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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show abstract

“…Another issue where uncertainty manipulations can be particularly informative is whether deficits in amusics are restricted to pitch information, or whether they extend to other musical features. While some studies indicate spared rhythm and beat perception (Graves et al, 2019; Phillips-Silver et al, 2013) and spared use of tempo (Gosselin, Paquette, & Peretz, 2015), timbre (Jiang, Liu, & Wong, 2017), or loudness (Graves et al, 2019) cues, others report impaired contour (Graves et al, 2019) and timbre perception in amusics (Marin, Gingras, & Stewart, 2012; Omigie, Pearce, & Stewart, 2012; Tillmann, Schulze, & Foxton, 2009). Crucially, some evidence suggests that deficits in other features appear once the pitch information—or otherwise spectral information such as timbre—of musical pieces becomes complex.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Listeners with congenital amusia are sensitive to context uncertainty in melodic sequences

Quiroga-Martinez¹,

Tillmann

Brattico

et al. 2020

Preprint

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AbstractIn typical listeners, the perceptual salience of a surprising auditory event depends on the uncertainty of its context. For example, in melodies, pitch deviants are more easily detected and generate larger neural responses when the context is highly predictable than when it is less so. However, it is not known whether amusic listeners with abnormal pitch processing are sensitive to the degree of uncertainty of pitch sequences and, if so, whether they are to a different extent than typical listeners. To answer this question, we manipulated the uncertainty of short melodies while participants with and without congenital amusia underwent EEG recordings in a passive listening task. Uncertainty was manipulated by presenting melodies with different levels of complexity and familiarity, under the assumption that simpler and more familiar patterns would enhance pitch predictability. We recorded mismatch negativity (MMN) responses to pitch, intensity, timbre, location, and rhythm deviants as a measure of auditory surprise. We found reduced MMN amplitudes and longer peak latencies for all sound features with increasing levels of complexity, and putative familiarity effects only for intensity deviants. No significant group-by-complexity or group-by-familiarity interactions were detected. However, in amusics, pitch MMN responses peaked later and were disrupted in high complexity and unfamiliar melodies. Our results indicate that amusics are sensitive to the uncertainty of melodic sequences and hint at pitch-specific impairments in this population when uncertainty is high. As previous research has linked amusia with abnormal frontotemporal connectivity, our findings potentially suggest that processing pitch under high uncertainty conditions requires an intact frontotemporal loop.

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“…First, the contribution of bottom-up aspects of pitch encoding to account for the differences between musicians and non-musicians should be minimal. Indeed, the minimal pitch changes to be detected in our task were cents (local condition with k-ratio=1/3), which is higher than the just-noticeable-differences (JNDs) typically measured with isolated pure tones in naive listeners (Graves et al, 2019). Rather, our results can be best understood in the context of "informational masking", consistent with studies reporting JNDs of several thousands hertz when measured using random tone sequences varying in large frequency ranges (Watson, 2005).…”

Section: Candidate Mechanisms Governing Local-global Processing Reorgmentioning

confidence: 58%

Auditory local-global temporal processing: Evidence for perceptual reorganization with musical expertise

Susini¹,

Jiaouan²,

Brunet³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The way the visual system processes different scales of spatial information has been widely studied, highlighting the dominant role of global over local processing. Recent studies addressing how the auditory system deals with local-global temporal information suggest a comparable processing scheme, but little is known about how this organization is modulated by long-term musical training, in particular regarding musical sequences. Here, we investigate how non-musicians and expert musicians detect local and global pitch changes in short hierarchical tone sequences structured across temporally-segregated triplets made of musical intervals (local scale) forming a melodic contour (global scale) varying either in one direction (monotonic) or both (non-monotonic). Our data reveal a clearly distinct organization between both groups. Non-musicians show global advantage (enhanced performance to detect global over local modifications) and global-to-local interference effects (interference of global over local processing) only for monotonic sequences, while musicians exhibit the reversed pattern for non-monotonic sequences. These results suggest that the local-global processing scheme depends on the complexity of the melodic contour, and that long-term musical training induces a prominent perceptual reorganization that reshapes its initial global dominance to favour local information processing. This latter result supports the theory of “analytic” processing acquisition in musicians.

show abstract

Short- and long-term memory for pitch and non-pitch contours: Insights from congenital amusia

Cited by 29 publications

References 67 publications

Auditory local–global temporal processing: evidence for perceptual reorganization with musical expertise

Auditory local–global temporal processing: evidence for perceptual reorganization with musical expertise

Listeners with congenital amusia are sensitive to context uncertainty in melodic sequences

Auditory local-global temporal processing: Evidence for perceptual reorganization with musical expertise

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