Abstract
In music, melodic information is thought to be encoded in two forms,
a contour code (up/down pattern of pitch changes) and an interval
code (pitch distances between successive notes). A recent study recording
the mismatch negativity (MMN) evoked by pitch contour and interval
deviations in simple melodies demonstrated that people with no formal
music education process both contour and interval information in
the auditory cortex automatically. However, it is still unclear whether
musical experience enhances both strategies of melodic encoding.
We designed stimuli to examine contour and interval information separately.
In the contour condition there were eight different standard melodies
(presented on 80\% of trials), each consisting of five notes all
ascending in pitch, and the corresponding deviant melodies (20\%)
were altered to descending on their final note. The interval condition
used one five-note standard melody transposed to eight keys from
trial to trial, and on deviant trials the last note was raised by
one whole tone without changing the pitch contour. There was also
a control condition, in which a standard tone (990.7 Hz) and a deviant
tone (1111.0 Hz) were presented. The magnetic counterpart of the
MMN (MMNm) from musicians and nonmusicians was obtained as the difference
between the dipole moment in response to the standard and deviant
trials recorded by magnetoencephalography. Significantly larger MMNm
was present in musicians in both contour and interval conditions
than in nonmusicians, whereas MMNm in the control condition was similar
for both groups. The interval MMNm was larger than the contour MMNm
in musicians. No hemispheric difference was found in either group.
The results suggest that musical training enhances the ability to
automatically register abstract changes in the relative pitch structure
of melodies.
- acoustic
- cortex,auditory
- cortex:
- discrimination,pitch
- discrimination:
- effects,auditory:
- effects,cognition,cognition:
- factors,contour,interval,melody,music,musicality,perception,scale
- laterality,functional
- laterality:
- methods,adult,auditory,auditory
- methods,male,music,pitch
- perception,pitch
- perception:
- physiology,auditory
- physiology,auditory:
- physiology,dose-response
- physiology,humans,magnetoencephalography,magnetoencephalography:
- physiology,pitch
- physiology,radiation,time
- potentials,female,functional
- radiation
- relationship,evoked
- stimulation,acoustic
- stimulation:
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