Aesthetic judgments of music in experts and laypersons — An ERP study (original) (raw)
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Cognitive vs. affective listening modes and judgments of music-An ERP study
Biological …, 2010
The neural correlates of processing deviations from Western music rules are relatively well known. Less is known of the neural dynamics of top-down listening modes and affective liking judgments in relation with judgments of tonal correctness. In this study, subjects determined if tonal chord sequences sounded correct or incorrect, or if they liked them or not, while their electroencephalogram (EEG) was measured. The last chord of the sequences could be congruous with the previous context, ambiguous (unusual but still enjoyable) or harmonically inappropriate. The cognitive vs. affective listening modes were differen- tiated in the event-related potential (ERP) responses already before the ending chord, indicating different preparation for the judgment tasks. Furthermore, three neural events tagged the decision process pre- ceding the behavioral responses. First, an early negativity, peaking at about 280 ms, was elicited by chord incorrectness and by disliking judgments only over the right hemisphere. Second, at about 500 ms from the end of the sequence a positive brain response was elicited by the negative answers of both tasks. Third, at about 1200 ms, a late positive potential (LPP) was elicited by the liking judgment task whereas a large negative brain response was elicited by the correctness judgment task, indexing that only at that late latency preceding the button press subjects decided how to judge the cadences. This is the first study to reveal the dissociation between neural processes occurring during affective vs. cognitive listening modes and judgments of music.
Electrophysiological Correlates of Aesthetic Music Processing
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2009
We analyzed the processes of making aesthetic judgments of music, focusing on the differences between music experts and laypersons. Sixteen students of musicology and 16 control subjects (also students) judged the aesthetic value as well as the harmonic correctness of chord sequences. Event-related potential (ERP) data indicate differences between experts and laypersons in making aesthetic judgments at three different processing stages. Additionally, effects of expertise on ERP components that have previously been proven to be sensitive to musical training were replicated. The study thus provides insights into the effects of musical expertise on neural correlates of aesthetic music processing.
Musicianship facilitates the processing of Western music chords--an ERP and behavioral study
2014
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.
Processing Tonal Modulations: An ERP Study
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2003
& A common stylistic element of Western tonal music is the change of key within a musical sequence (known as modulation in musical terms). The aim of the present study was to investigate neural correlates of the cognitive processing of modulations with event-related brain potentials. Participants listened to sequences of chords that were infrequently modulating. Modulating chords elicited distinct effects in the event-related brain potentials: an early right anterior negativity reflecting the processing of a violation of musical regularities and a late frontal negativity taken to reflect processes of harmonic integration. Additionally, modulations elicited a tonic negative potential suggested to reflect cognitive processes characteristic for the processing of tonal modulations, namely, the restructuring of the ''hierarchy of harmonic stability'' (which specifies musical expectations), presumably entailing working memory operations. Participants were ''nonmusicians''; results thus support the hypothesis that nonmusicians have a sophisticated (implicit) knowledge about musical regularities. & D
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2006
& The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of harmonic expectancy violations on emotions. Subjective response measures for tension and emotionality, as well as electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate (HR), were recorded from 24 subjects (12 musicians and 12 nonmusicians) to observe the effect of expectancy violations on subjective and physiological measures of emotions. In addition, an electroencephalogram was recorded to observe the neural correlates for detecting these violations. Stimuli consisted of three matched versions of six Bach chorales, which differed only in terms of one chord (harmonically either expected, unexpected or very unexpected). Musicians' and nonmusicians' responses were also compared. Tension, overall subjective emotionality, and EDA increased with an increase in harmonic unexpectedness. Analysis of the event-related potentials revealed an early negativity (EN) for both the unexpected and the very unexpected harmonies, taken to reflect the detection of the unexpected event. The EN in response to very unexpected chords was significantly larger in amplitude than the EN in response to merely unexpected harmonic events. The ENs did not differ in amplitude between the two groups but peaked earlier for musicians than for nonmusicians. Both groups also showed a P3 component in response to the very unexpected harmonies, which was considerably larger for musicians and may reflect the processing of stylistic violations of Western classical music. & D
Psychophysiology, 2020
Research into how the brain processes temporal structure has gained increasing attention, yet there is remarkably little understanding of how temporal and non-temporal structures are processed simultaneously. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we examined how the brain responds to temporal (metric) and non-temporal (harmonic) structures in music simultaneously, and whether these processes are impacted by musical expertise. Fifteen musicians and 15 nonmusicians rated the degree of completeness of musical sequences with or without violations in metric or harmonic structures. In the single violation conditions, the ERP results showed that both musicians and nonmusicians exhibited an early right anterior negativity (ERAN) as well as an N5 to temporal violations ("when"), and only an N5-like response to non-temporal violations ("what") , which were consistent with the behavioral results. In the double violation condition, however, only the ERP results, but not the behavioral results, revealed a significant interaction between temporal and non-temporal violations at a later integrative stage, as manifested by an enlarged N5 effect compared to the single violation conditions. These findings provide the first evidence that the human brain uses different neural mechanisms in processing metric and harmonic structures in music, which may shed light on how the brain generates predictions for "what" and "when" events in the natural environment.
Harmonic expectation and affect in Western music: Effects of attention and training
Attention Perception & Psychophysics, 2007
We investigated the effects of selective attention and musical training on the processing of harmonic expectations. In Experiment 1, participants with and without musical training were required to respond to the contour of melodies as they were presented with chord progressions that were highly expected, slightly unexpected, or extremely unexpected. Reaction time and accuracy results showed that when attention was focused on the melody, musically trained participants were still sensitive to different harmonic expectations, whereas participants with no musical training were undifferentiated across expectation conditions. In Experiment 2, participants were required to listen holistically to the entire chord progression and to rate their preference for each chord progression. Results from preference ratings showed that all the participants, with or without musical training, were sensitive to manipulations of harmonic expectations. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that changing the speed of presentation of chord progressions did not affect the pattern of results. The four experiments together highlight the importance of attentional focus in musical training, especially as it relates to the processing of harmonic expectations.
Brain Indices of Music Processing: Nonmusicians are Musical
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2000
& Only little systematic research has examined event-related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by the cognitive processing of music. The present study investigated how music processing is influenced by a preceding musical context, affected by the task relevance of unexpected chords, and influenced by the degree and the probability of violation. Four experiments were conducted in which``nonmusicians'' listened to chord sequences, which infrequently contained a chord violating the sound expectancy of listeners. Integration of in-key chords into the musical context was reflected as a late negative-frontal deflection in the ERPs. This negative deflection declined towards the end of a chord sequence, reflecting normal buildup of musical context. Brain waves elicited by chords with unexpected notes revealed two ERP effects: an early right-hemispheric preponderant-anterior negativity, which was taken to reflect the violation of sound expectancy; and a late bilateral-frontal negativity. The late negativity was larger compared to in-key chords and taken to reflect the higher degree of integration needed for unexpected chords. The early right-anterior negativity (ERAN) was unaffected by the task relevance of unexpected chords. The amplitudes of both early and late negativities were found to be sensitive to the degree of musical expectancy induced by the preceding harmonic context, and to the probability for deviant acoustic events. The employed experimental design opens a new field for the investigation of music processing. Results strengthen the hypothesis of an implicit musical ability of the human brain. & D
The effects of learning on event-related potential correlates of musical expectancy
Psychophysiology, 2008
Musical processing studies have shown that unexpected endings in familiar musical sequences produce extended latencies of the P300 component. The present study sought to identify event-related potential (ERP) correlates of musical expectancy by entraining participants with rule-governed chord sequences and testing whether unexpected endings created similar responses. Two experiments were conducted in which participants performed grammaticality classifications without training (Experiment 1) and with training (Experiment 2). In both experiments, deviant chords differing in instrumental timbre elicited a MMN/P3a waveform complex. Violations related to learned patterns elicited an early right anterior negativity and P3b. Latency and amplitude of peak components were modulated by the physical characteristics of the chords, expectations due to prior knowledge of musical harmony, and contextually defined expectations developed through entrainment.