Automatic and controlled processing of melodic contour and interval information measured by electrical brain activity

Mismatch negativity as a marker of auditory pattern separation

To what extent does incidental encoding of auditory stimuli influence subsequent episodic memory for the same stimuli? We examined whether the mismatch negativity (MMN), an event-related potential generated by auditory change detection, is correlated with participants' ability to discriminate those stimuli (i.e. targets) from highly similar lures and from dissimilar foils. We measured the MMN in 30 young adults (18-32 years, 18 females) using a passive auditory oddball task with standard and deviant 5-tone sequences differing in pitch contour. After exposure, all participants completed an incidental memory test for old targets, lures, and foils. As expected, participants at test exhibited high sensitivity in recognizing target items relative to foils and lower sensitivity in recognizing target items relative to lures. Notably, we found a significant correlation between MMN amplitude and lure discrimination, but not foil discrimination. Our investigation shows that our capacity to discriminate sensory inputs at encoding, as measured by the MMN, translates into precision in memory for those inputs.

Virtual reality-based music attention training for acquired brain injury: A protocol for randomized cross-over trial

Attention training is the primary step in the rehabilitation for patients with acquired brain injury (ABI). While active music performance has been reported to aid neural and functional recovery, its efficacy for patients with ABI remains uncertain due to methodological concerns. The purpose of the study is to develop a virtual reality-based music attention training (VR-MAT), which utilizes a visually guided, bilateral drumming in an immersive environment to train attention and executive functions. We also aims to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of the VR-MAT with a small sample size of participants (3-60 months after ABI, N = 20 approximately). Participants will be randomly assigned to either a waitlist control or music group, in which VR-MAT will take place five times weekly over 4 weeks (randomized crossover design). The evaluation of VR-MAT performance will include accuracy and response time in music responses. Neurocognitive outcome measures will be administered to quantify pre-post changes in attention, working memory, and executive functions. Additionally, functional near-infrared spectroscopy will be employed to explore the relationships between musical behavior, neurocognitive function, and neurophysiological responses.

Music can be reconstructed from human auditory cortex activity using nonlinear decoding models

Music is core to human experience, yet the precise neural dynamics underlying music perception remain unknown. We analyzed a unique intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) dataset of 29 patients who listened to a Pink Floyd song and applied a stimulus reconstruction approach previously used in the speech domain. We successfully reconstructed a recognizable song from direct neural recordings and quantified the impact of different factors on decoding accuracy. Combining encoding and decoding analyses, we found a right-hemisphere dominance for music perception with a primary role of the superior temporal gyrus (STG), evidenced a new STG subregion tuned to musical rhythm, and defined an anterior-posterior STG organization exhibiting sustained and onset responses to musical elements. Our findings show the feasibility of applying predictive modeling on short datasets acquired in single patients, paving the way for adding musical elements to brain-computer interface (BCI) applications.

An early perceptual locus of absolute pitch

Absolute pitch (AP) refers to the naming of musical tone without external reference. The influential two-component model states that AP is limited by the late-emerging pitch labeling process only and not the earlier perceptual and memory processes. Over the years, however, support for this model at the neural level has been mixed with various methodological limitations. Here, the electroencephalography responses of 27 AP possessors and 27 non-AP possessors were recorded. During both name verification and passive listening, event-related potential analyses showed a difference between AP and non-AP possessors at about 200 ms in their response toward tones compared with noise stimuli. Multivariate pattern analyses suggested that pitch naming was subserved by a series of transient processes for the first 250 ms, followed by a stage-like process for both AP and non-AP possessors with no group differences between them. These findings are inconsistent with the predictions of the two-component model, and instead suggest the existence of an early perceptual locus of AP.

Criterion-Related Validation of a Music-Based Attention Assessment for Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury

The music-based attention assessment (MAA) is a melody contour identification task that evaluates different types of attention. Previous studies have examined the psychometric and physiological validity of the MAA across various age groups in clinical and typical populations. The purpose of this study was to confirm the MAA's criterion validity in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to correlate this with standardized neuropsychological measurements. The MAA and various neurocognitive tests (i.e., the Wechsler adult intelligence scale DST, Delis-Kaplan executive functioning scale color-word interference test, and Conner's continuous performance test) were administered to 38 patients within two weeks prior to or post to the MAA administration. Significant correlations between MAA and neurocognitive batteries were found, indicating the potential of MAA as a valid measure of different types of attention deficits. An additional multiple regression analysis revealed that MAA was a significant factor in predicting attention ability.

The sound of silence: Predictive error responses to unexpected sound omission in adults

The human auditory system excels at detecting patterns needed for processing speech and music. According to predictive coding, the brain predicts incoming sounds, compares predictions to sensory input, and generates a prediction error whenever a mismatch between the prediction and sensory input occurs. Predictive coding can be indexed in EEG with the mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a components, two ERP components that are elicited by infrequent deviant sounds (e.g., differing in pitch, duration, loudness) in a stream of frequent sounds. If these components reflect prediction error, they should also be elicited by omitting an expected sound, but few studies have examined this. We compared ERPs elicited by infrequent randomly occurring omissions (unexpected silences) in tone sequences presented at 2 tones/sec to ERPs elicited by frequent, regularly occurring omissions (expected silences) within a sequence of tones and resting state EEG (a constant silence). We found that unexpected silences elicited significant MMN and P3a, although the magnitude of these components was quite small and variable. These results provide evidence for hierarchical predictive coding, indicating that the brain predicts silences as well as sounds.

Music processing and amusia

Music is a universal and important human trait, which is orchestrated by complex brain network centered in the temporal lobe but connecting broadly to multiple cortical and subcortical regions. In the human brain, music engages a widespread bilateral network of regions that govern auditory perception, syntactic and semantic processing, attention and memory, emotion and reward, and motor skills. The ability to perceive or produce music can be severely impaired either due to abnormal brain development or brain damage, leading to a condition called amusia. Modern neuroimaging studies of amusia have provided valuable knowledge about the structure and function of specific brain regions and white matter pathways that are crucial for music perception, highlighting the role of the right frontotemporal network in this process. In this chapter, we provide an overview on the neural basis of music processing in a healthy brain and review evidence obtained from the studies of congenital and acquired amusia.

Violation of rhythmic expectancies can elicit late frontal gamma activity nested in theta oscillations

Rhythm processing involves building expectations according to the hierarchical temporal structure of auditory events. Although rhythm processing has been addressed in the context of predictive coding, the properties of the oscillatory response in different cortical areas are still not clear. We explored the oscillatory properties of the neural response to rhythmic incongruence and the cross-frequency coupling between multiple frequencies to further investigate the mechanisms underlying rhythm perception. We designed an experiment to investigate the neural response to rhythmic deviations in which the tone either arrived earlier than expected or the tone in the same metrical position was omitted. These two manipulations modulate the rhythmic structure differently, with the former creating a larger violation of the general structure of the musical stimulus than the latter. Both deviations resulted in an MMN response, whereas only the rhythmic deviant resulted in a subsequent P3a. Rhythmic deviants due to the early occurrence of a tone, but not omission deviants, seemed to elicit a late high gamma response (60-80 Hz) at the end of the P3a over the left frontal region, which, interestingly, correlated with the P3a amplitude over the same region and was also nested in theta oscillations. The timing of the elicited high-frequency gamma oscillations related to rhythmic deviation suggests that it might be related to the update of the predictive neural model, corresponding to the temporal structure of the events in higher-level cortical areas.

Change detection of auditory tonal patterns defined by absolute versus relative pitch information. A combined behavioural and EEG study

The human auditory system often relies on relative pitch information to extract and identify auditory objects; such as when the same melody is played in different keys. The current study investigated the mental chronometry underlying the active discrimination of unfamiliar melodic six-tone patterns by measuring behavioural performance and event-related potentials (ERPs). In a roving standard paradigm, such patterns were either repeated identically within a stimulus train, carrying absolute frequency information about the pattern, or shifted in pitch (transposed) between repetitions, so only relative pitch information was available to extract the pattern identity. Results showed that participants were able to use relative pitch to detect when a new melodic pattern occurred. Though in the absence of absolute pitch sensitivity significantly decreased and behavioural reaction time to pattern changes increased. Mismatch-Negativity (MMN), an ERP indicator of auditory deviance detection, was elicited at approximately 206 ms after stimulus onset at frontocentral electrodes, even when only relative pitch was available to inform pattern discrimination. A P3a was elicited in both conditions, comparable in amplitude and latency. Increased latencies but no differences in amplitudes of N2b, and P3b suggest that processing at higher levels is affected when, in the absence of absolute pitch cues, relative pitch has to be extracted to inform pattern discrimination. Interestingly, the response delay of approximately 70 ms on the behavioural level, already fully manifests at the level of N2b. This is in accordance with recent findings on implicit auditory learning processes and suggests that in the absence of absolute pitch cues a slowing of target selection rather than a slowing of the auditory pattern change detection process causes the deterioration in behavioural performance.

Early cortical processing of pitch height and the role of adaptation and musicality

Pitch is an important perceptual feature; however, it is poorly understood how its cortical correlates are shaped by absolute vs relative fundamental frequency (f₀), and by neural adaptation. In this study, we assessed transient and sustained auditory evoked fields (AEFs) at the onset, progression, and offset of short pitch height sequences, taking into account the listener's musicality. We show that neuromagnetic activity reflects absolute f₀ at pitch onset and offset, and relative f₀ at transitions within pitch sequences; further, sequences with fixed f₀ lead to larger response suppression than sequences with variable f₀ contour, and to enhanced offset activity. Musical listeners exhibit stronger f₀-related AEFs and larger differences between their responses to fixed vs variable sequences, both within sequences and at pitch offset. The results resemble prominent psychoacoustic phenomena in the perception of pitch contours; moreover, they suggest a strong influence of adaptive mechanisms on cortical pitch processing which, in turn, might be modulated by a listener's musical expertise.

Functional connectivity in human auditory networks and the origins of variation in the transmission of musical systems

Music producers, whether original composers or performers, vary in their ability to acquire and faithfully transmit music. This form of variation may serve as a mechanism for the emergence of new traits in musical systems. In this study, we aim to investigate whether individual differences in the social learning and transmission of music relate to intrinsic neural dynamics of auditory processing systems. We combined auditory and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with an interactive laboratory model of cultural transmission, the signaling game, in an experiment with a large cohort of participants (N=51). We found that the degree of interhemispheric rs-FC within fronto-temporal auditory networks predicts—weeks after scanning—learning, transmission, and structural modification of an artificial tone system. Our study introduces neuroimaging in cultural transmission research and points to specific neural auditory processing mechanisms that constrain and drive variation in the cultural transmission and regularization of musical systems.

Cognitive Load Changes during Music Listening and its Implication in Earcon Design in Public Environments: An fNIRS Study

A key for earcon design in public environments is to incorporate an individual’s perceived level of cognitive load for better communication. This study aimed to examine the cognitive load changes required to perform a melodic contour identification task (CIT). While healthy college students (N = 16) were presented with five CITs, behavioral (reaction time and accuracy) and cerebral hemodynamic responses were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Our behavioral findings showed a gradual increase in cognitive load from CIT1 to CIT3 followed by an abrupt increase between CIT4 (i.e., listening to two concurrent melodic contours in an alternating manner and identifying the direction of the target contour, p < 0.001) and CIT5 (i.e., listening to two concurrent melodic contours in a divided manner and identifying the directions of both contours, p < 0.001). Cerebral hemodynamic responses showed a congruent trend with behavioral findings. Specific to the frontopolar area (Brodmann’s area 10), oxygenated hemoglobin increased significantly between CIT4 and CIT5 (p < 0.05) while the level of deoxygenated hemoglobin decreased. Altogether, the findings indicate that the cognitive threshold for young adults (CIT5) and appropriate tuning of the relationship between timbre and pitch contour can lower the perceived cognitive load and, thus, can be an effective design strategy for earcon in a public environment.

Are lexical tones musical? Native language's influence on neural response to pitch in different domains

Language experience shapes musical and speech pitch processing. We investigated whether speaking a lexical tone language natively modulates neural processing of pitch in language and music as well as their correlation. We tested tone language (Mandarin Chinese), and non-tone language (Dutch) listeners in a passive oddball paradigm measuring mismatch negativity (MMN) for (i) Chinese lexical tones and (ii) three-note musical melodies with similar pitch contours. For lexical tones, Chinese listeners showed a later MMN peak than the non-tone language listeners, whereas for MMN amplitude there were no significant differences between groups. Dutch participants also showed a late discriminative negativity (LDN). In the music condition two MMNs, corresponding to the two notes that differed between the standard and the deviant were found for both groups, and an LDN were found for both the Dutch and the Chinese listeners. The music MMNs were significantly right lateralized. Importantly, significant correlations were found between the lexical tone and the music MMNs for the Dutch but not the Chinese participants. The results suggest that speaking a tone language natively does not necessarily enhance neural responses to pitch either in language or in music, but that it does change the nature of neural pitch processing: non-tone language speakers appear to perceive lexical tones as musical, whereas for tone language speakers, lexical tones and music may activate different neural networks. Neural resources seem to be assigned differently for the lexical tones and for musical melodies, presumably depending on the presence or absence of long-term phonological memory traces.

Influence of Musical Enculturation on Brain Responses to Metric Deviants

The ability to recognize metric accents is fundamental in both music and language perception. It has been suggested that music listeners prefer rhythms that follow simple binary meters, which are common in Western music. This means that listeners expect odd-numbered beats to be strong and even-numbered beats to be weak. In support of this, studies have shown that listeners exposed to Western music show stronger novelty and incongruity related P3 and irregularity detection related mismatch negativity (MMN) brain responses to attenuated odd- than attenuated even-numbered metric positions. Furthermore, behavioral evidence suggests that music listeners' preferences can be changed by long-term exposure to non-Western rhythms and meters, e.g., by listening to African or Balkan music. In our study, we investigated whether it might be possible to measure effects of music enculturation on neural responses to attenuated tones on specific metric positions. We compared the magnetic mismatch negativity (MMNm) to attenuated beats in a “Western group” of listeners (n = 12) mainly exposed to Western music and a “Bicultural group” of listeners (n = 13) exposed for at least 1 year to both Sub-Saharan African music in addition to Western music. We found that in the “Western group” the MMNm was higher in amplitude to deviant tones on odd compared to even metric positions, but not in the “Bicultural group.” In support of this finding, there was also a trend of the “Western group” to rate omitted beats as more surprising on odd than even metric positions, whereas the “Bicultural group” seemed to discriminate less between metric positions in terms of surprise ratings. Also, we observed that the overall latency of the MMNm was significantly shorter in the Bicultural group compared to the Western group. These effects were not biased by possible differences in rhythm perception ability or music training, measured with the Musical Ear Test (MET). Furthermore, source localization analyses suggest that auditory, inferior temporal, sensory-motor, superior frontal, and parahippocampal regions might be involved in eliciting the MMNm to the metric deviants. These findings suggest that effects of music enculturation can be measured on MMNm responses to attenuated tones on specific metric positions.

Melodic Contour Identification Reflects the Cognitive Threshold of Aging

Cognitive decline is a natural phenomenon of aging. Although there exists a consensus that sensitivity to acoustic features of music is associated with such decline, no solid evidence has yet shown that structural elements and contexts of music explain this loss of cognitive performance. This study examined the extent and the type of cognitive decline that is related to the contour identification task (CIT) using tones with different pitches (i.e., melodic contours). Both younger and older adult groups participated in the CIT given in three listening conditions (i.e., focused, selective, and alternating). Behavioral data (accuracy and response times) and hemodynamic reactions were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Our findings showed cognitive declines in the older adult group but with a subtle difference from the younger adult group. The accuracy of the melodic CITs given in the target-like distraction task (CIT2) was significantly lower than that in the environmental noise (CIT1) condition in the older adult group, indicating that CIT2 may be a benchmark test for age-specific cognitive decline. The fNIRS findings also agreed with this interpretation, revealing significant increases in oxygenated hemoglobin (oxyHb) concentration in the younger (p < 0.05 for Δpre - on task; p < 0.01 for Δon – post task) rather than the older adult group (n.s for Δpre - on task; n.s for Δon – post task). We further concluded that the oxyHb difference was present in the brain regions near the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Taken together, these findings suggest that CIT2 (i.e., the melodic contour task in the target-like distraction) is an optimized task that could indicate the degree and type of age-related cognitive decline.

Cognitive predictors of skilled performance with an advanced upper limb multifunction prosthesis: a preliminary analysis

Purpose The objectives were to 1) identify major cognitive domains involved in learning to use the DEKA Arm; 2) specify cognitive domain-specific skills associated with basic versus advanced users; and 3) examine whether baseline memory and executive function predicted learning. Method Sample included 35 persons with upper limb amputation. Subjects were administered a brief neuropsychological test battery prior to start of DEKA Arm training, as well as physical performance measures at the onset of, and following training. Multiple regression models controlling for age and including neuropsychological tests were developed to predict physical performance scores. Prosthetic performance scores were divided into quartiles and independent samples t-tests compared neuropsychological test scores of advanced scorers and basic scorers. Baseline neuropsychological test scores were used to predict change in scores on physical performance measures across time. Results Cognitive domains of attention and processing speed were statistically significantly related to proficiency of DEKA Arm use and predicted level of proficiency. Conclusions Results support use of neuropsychological tests to predict learning and use of a multifunctional prosthesis. Assessment of cognitive status at the outset of training may help set expectations for the duration and outcomes of treatment. Implications for Rehabilitation Cognitive domains of attention and processing speed were significantly related to level of proficiencyof an advanced multifunctional prosthesis (the DEKA Arm) after training. Results provide initial support for the use of neuropsychological tests to predict advanced learningand use of a multifunctional prosthesis in upper-limb amputees. Results suggest that assessment of patients' cognitive status at the outset of upper limb prosthetictraining may, in the future, help patients, their families and therapists set expectations for theduration and intensity of training and may help set reasonable proficiency goals.

Language and thought are not the same thing: evidence from neuroimaging and neurological patients

Is thought possible without language? Individuals with global aphasia, who have almost no ability to understand or produce language, provide a powerful opportunity to find out. Surprisingly, despite their near-total loss of language, these individuals are nonetheless able to add and subtract, solve logic problems, think about another person's thoughts, appreciate music, and successfully navigate their environments. Further, neuroimaging studies show that healthy adults strongly engage the brain's language areas when they understand a sentence, but not when they perform other nonlinguistic tasks such as arithmetic, storing information in working memory, inhibiting prepotent responses, or listening to music. Together, these two complementary lines of evidence provide a clear answer: many aspects of thought engage distinct brain regions from, and do not depend on, language.

Musical training as an alternative and effective method for neuro-education and neuro-rehabilitation

In the last decade, important advances in the field of cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience have largely contributed to improve our knowledge on brain functioning. More recently, a line of research has been developed that aims at using musical training and practice as alternative tools for boosting specific perceptual, motor, cognitive, and emotional skills both in healthy population and in neurologic patients. These findings are of great hope for a better treatment of language-based learning disorders or motor impairment in chronic non-communicative diseases. In the first part of this review, we highlight several studies showing that learning to play a musical instrument can induce substantial neuroplastic changes in cortical and subcortical regions of motor, auditory and speech processing networks in healthy population. In a second part, we provide an overview of the evidence showing that musical training can be an alternative, low-cost and effective method for the treatment of language-based learning impaired populations. We then report results of the few studies showing that training with musical instruments can have positive effects on motor, emotional, and cognitive deficits observed in patients with non-communicable diseases such as stroke or Parkinson Disease. Despite inherent differences between musical training in educational and rehabilitation contexts, these results favor the idea that the structural, multimodal, and emotional properties of musical training can play an important role in developing new, creative and cost-effective intervention programs for education and rehabilitation in the next future.

ECoG high gamma activity reveals distinct cortical representations of lyrics passages, harmonic and timbre-related changes in a rock song

Listening to music moves our minds and moods, stirring interest in its neural underpinnings. A multitude of compositional features drives the appeal of natural music. How such original music, where a composer's opus is not manipulated for experimental purposes, engages a listener's brain has not been studied until recently. Here, we report an in-depth analysis of two electrocorticographic (ECoG) data sets obtained over the left hemisphere in ten patients during presentation of either a rock song or a read-out narrative. First, the time courses of five acoustic features (intensity, presence/absence of vocals with lyrics, spectral centroid, harmonic change, and pulse clarity) were extracted from the audio tracks and found to be correlated with each other to varying degrees. In a second step, we uncovered the specific impact of each musical feature on ECoG high-gamma power (70-170 Hz) by calculating partial correlations to remove the influence of the other four features. In the music condition, the onset and offset of vocal lyrics in ongoing instrumental music was consistently identified within the group as the dominant driver for ECoG high-gamma power changes over temporal auditory areas, while concurrently subject-individual activation spots were identified for sound intensity, timbral, and harmonic features. The distinct cortical activations to vocal speech-related content embedded in instrumental music directly demonstrate that song integrated in instrumental music represents a distinct dimension in complex music. In contrast, in the speech condition, the full sound envelope was reflected in the high gamma response rather than the onset or offset of the vocal lyrics. This demonstrates how the contributions of stimulus features that modulate the brain response differ across the two examples of a full-length natural stimulus, which suggests a context-dependent feature selection in the processing of complex auditory stimuli.

Rhythmic complexity and predictive coding: a novel approach to modeling rhythm and meter perception in music

Musical rhythm, consisting of apparently abstract intervals of accented temporal events, has a remarkable capacity to move our minds and bodies. How does the cognitive system enable our experiences of rhythmically complex music? In this paper, we describe some common forms of rhythmic complexity in music and propose the theory of predictive coding (PC) as a framework for understanding how rhythm and rhythmic complexity are processed in the brain. We also consider why we feel so compelled by rhythmic tension in music. First, we consider theories of rhythm and meter perception, which provide hierarchical and computational approaches to modeling. Second, we present the theory of PC, which posits a hierarchical organization of brain responses reflecting fundamental, survival-related mechanisms associated with predicting future events. According to this theory, perception and learning is manifested through the brain’s Bayesian minimization of the error between the input to the brain and the brain’s prior expectations. Third, we develop a PC model of musical rhythm, in which rhythm perception is conceptualized as an interaction between what is heard (“rhythm”) and the brain’s anticipatory structuring of music (“meter”). Finally, we review empirical studies of the neural and behavioral effects of syncopation, polyrhythm and groove, and propose how these studies can be seen as special cases of the PC theory. We argue that musical rhythm exploits the brain’s general principles of prediction and propose that pleasure and desire for sensorimotor synchronization from musical rhythm may be a result of such mechanisms.

How does the extraction of local and global auditory regularities vary with context?

How does the human brain extract regularities from its environment? There is evidence that short range or ‘local’ regularities (within seconds) are automatically detected by the brain while long range or ‘global’ regularities (over tens of seconds or more) require conscious awareness. In the present experiment, we asked whether participants' attention was needed to acquire such auditory regularities, to detect their violation or both. We designed a paradigm in which participants listened to predictable sounds. Subjects could be distracted by a visual task at two moments: when they were first exposed to a regularity or when they detected violations of this regularity. MEG recordings revealed that early brain responses (100–130 ms) to violations of short range regularities were unaffected by visual distraction and driven essentially by local transitional probabilities. Based on global workspace theory and prior results, we expected that visual distraction would eliminate the long range global effect, but unexpectedly, we found the contrary, i.e. late brain responses (300–600 ms) to violations of long range regularities on audio-visual trials but not on auditory only trials. Further analyses showed that, in fact, visual distraction was incomplete and that auditory and visual stimuli interfered in both directions. Our results show that conscious, attentive subjects can learn the long range dependencies present in auditory stimuli even while performing a visual task on synchronous visual stimuli. Furthermore, they acquire a complex regularity and end up making different predictions for the very same stimulus depending on the context (i.e. absence or presence of visual stimuli). These results suggest that while short-range regularity detection is driven by local transitional probabilities between stimuli, the human brain detects and stores long-range regularities in a highly flexible, context dependent manner.

Music therapy in the treatment and management of mental disorders

Objectives: An increasing number of research studies support the benefits of providing music therapy in addition to standard treatment for people who have mental disorders. The objective of this paper was to review and summarise recent research findings in relation to this work.

Method: A review of music therapy studies published since 1994 was undertaken. Criteria for including papers were that they a) were published in English in an indexed, peer-reviewed journal, and b) were conducted as a randomised controlled trial (RCT) or a controlled trial (CT), or c) provided a meta-analysis of existing studies. The large number of papers pertaining to music therapy for older adults who have mental disorders, including Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia was not included.

Results: The findings support a role for music therapy as a structured interaction that patients are able to use to participate successfully, manage some of their symptoms, and express feelings relating to their experiences. Music therapy is demonstrated to be a beneficial intervention for people who have enduring mental illness. Music therapy invites and encourages participation from people of lower functioning levels and employs a non-verbal medium with which people have prior positive associations and in most cases have lifelong experience of using music for self-expression and pleasure. Additionally, the available peer reviewed literature supports the proposition that clinical outcomes are available through the use of music therapy intervention in conjunction with standard, well-established treatment methods.

Conclusions: Music therapy is beneficial for patients receiving care for mental disorders and establishing this therapy within mental health service provision should be considered.

Cerebral activations related to audition-driven performance imagery in professional musicians

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) was used to study the activation of cerebral motor networks during auditory perception of music in professional keyboard musicians (n = 12). The activation paradigm implied that subjects listened to two-part polyphonic music, while either critically appraising the performance or imagining they were performing themselves. Two-part polyphonic audition and bimanual motor imagery circumvented a hemisphere bias associated with the convention of playing the melody with the right hand. Both tasks activated ventral premotor and auditory cortices, bilaterally, and the right anterior parietal cortex, when contrasted to 12 musically unskilled controls. Although left ventral premotor activation was increased during imagery (compared to judgment), bilateral dorsal premotor and right posterior-superior parietal activations were quite unique to motor imagery. The latter suggests that musicians not only recruited their manual motor repertoire but also performed a spatial transformation from the vertically perceived pitch axis (high and low sound) to the horizontal axis of the keyboard. Imagery-specific activations in controls were seen in left dorsal parietal-premotor and supplementary motor cortices. Although these activations were less strong compared to musicians, this overlapping distribution indicated the recruitment of a general 'mirror-neuron' circuitry. These two levels of sensori-motor transformations point towards common principles by which the brain organizes audition-driven music performance and visually guided task performance.

Cortical encoding of pitch contour changes in cochlear implant users: a mismatch negativity study

A better understanding of melodic pitch perception in cochlear implants (CIs) may guide signal processing and/or rehabilitation techniques to improve music perception and appreciation in CI patients. In this study, the mismatch negativity (MMN) in response to infrequent changes in 5-tone pitch contours was obtained in CI users and normal-hearing (NH) listeners. Melodic contour identification (MCI) was also measured. Results showed that MCI performance was poorer in CI than in NH subjects; the MMNs were missing in all CI subjects for the 1-semitone contours. The MMNs with the 5-semitone contours were observed in a smaller proportion of CI than NH subjects. Results suggest that encoding of pitch contour changes in CI users appears to be degraded, most likely due to the limited pitch cues provided by the CI and deafness-related compromise of brain substrates.

From perception to pleasure: music and its neural substrates

Music has existed in human societies since prehistory, perhaps because it allows expression and regulation of emotion and evokes pleasure. In this review, we present findings from cognitive neuroscience that bear on the question of how we get from perception of sound patterns to pleasurable responses. First, we identify some of the auditory cortical circuits that are responsible for encoding and storing tonal patterns and discuss evidence that cortical loops between auditory and frontal cortices are important for maintaining musical information in working memory and for the recognition of structural regularities in musical patterns, which then lead to expectancies. Second, we review evidence concerning the mesolimbic striatal system and its involvement in reward, motivation, and pleasure in other domains. Recent data indicate that this dopaminergic system mediates pleasure associated with music; specifically, reward value for music can be coded by activity levels in the nucleus accumbens, whose functional connectivity with auditory and frontal areas increases as a function of increasing musical reward. We propose that pleasure in music arises from interactions between cortical loops that enable predictions and expectancies to emerge from sound patterns and subcortical systems responsible for reward and valuation.

Toward a neural chronometry for the aesthetic experience of music

Music is often studied as a cognitive domain alongside language. The emotional aspects of music have also been shown to be important, but views on their nature diverge. For instance, the specific emotions that music induces and how they relate to emotional expression are still under debate. Here we propose a mental and neural chronometry of the aesthetic experience of music initiated and mediated by external and internal contexts such as intentionality, background mood, attention, and expertise. The initial stages necessary for an aesthetic experience of music are feature analysis, integration across modalities, and cognitive processing on the basis of long-term knowledge. These stages are common to individuals belonging to the same musical culture. The initial emotional reactions to music include the startle reflex, core "liking," and arousal. Subsequently, discrete emotions are perceived and induced. Presumably somatomotor processes synchronizing the body with the music also come into play here. The subsequent stages, in which cognitive, affective, and decisional processes intermingle, require controlled cross-modal neural processes to result in aesthetic emotions, aesthetic judgments, and conscious liking. These latter aesthetic stages often require attention, intentionality, and expertise for their full actualization.

Auditory global-local processing: effects of attention and musical experience

In vision, global (whole) features are typically processed before local (detail) features ("global precedence effect"). However, the distinction between global and local processing is less clear in the auditory domain. The aims of the present study were to investigate: (i) the effects of directed versus divided attention, and (ii) the effect musical training on auditory global-local processing in 16 adult musicians and 16 non-musicians. Participants were presented with short nine-tone melodies, each comprised of three triplet sequences (three-tone units). In a "directed attention" task, participants were asked to focus on either the global or local pitch pattern and had to determine if the pitch pattern went up or down. In a "divided attention" task, participants judged whether the target pattern (up or down) was present or absent. Overall, global structure was perceived faster and more accurately than local structure. The global precedence effect was observed regardless of whether attention was directed to a specific level or divided between levels. Musicians performed more accurately than non-musicians overall, but non-musicians showed a more pronounced global advantage. This study provides evidence for an auditory global precedence effect across attention tasks, and for differences in auditory global-local processing associated with musical experience.

Becoming musically enculturated: effects of music classes for infants on brain and behavior

Musical enculturation is a complex, multifaceted process that includes the development of perceptual processing specialized for the pitch and rhythmic structures of the musical system in the culture, understanding of esthetic and expressive norms, and learning the pragmatic uses of music in different social situations. Here, we summarize the results of a study in which 6-month-old Western infants were randomly assigned to 6 months of either an active participatory music class or a class in which they experienced music passively while playing. Active music participation resulted in earlier enculturation to Western tonal pitch structure, larger and/or earlier brain responses to musical tones, and a more positive social trajectory. Furthermore, the data suggest that early exposure to cultural norms of musical expression leads to early preferences for those norms. We conclude that musical enculturation begins in infancy and that active participatory music making in a positive social setting accelerates enculturation.

Interaction between bottom-up and top-down effects during the processing of pitch intervals in sequences of spoken and sung syllables

The processing of pitch intervals may be differentially influenced when musical or speech stimuli carry the pitch information. Most insights into the neural basis of pitch interval processing come from studies on music perception. However, music, in contrast to speech, contains a stable set of pitch intervals. To converge the investigation of pitch interval processing in music and speech, we used sequences of the same spoken or sung syllables. The pitch of these syllables varied either by semitone steps like in music or by smaller intervals. Participants had to differentiate the sequences according to their different sizes of pitch intervals or to the direction of the last frequency step in the sequence. The results depended strongly on the specific task demands. Whereas the interval-size task itself recruited more regions in right lateralized fronto-parietal brain network, stronger activity on semitone than on non-semitone sequences was found in the left hemisphere (mainly in frontal cortex) during this task. These effects were also influenced by the speech mode (spoken or sung syllables). Our findings suggest that the processing of pitch intervals in sequences of syllables depends on an interaction between bottom-up (speech mode, pitch interval) and top-down effects (task).

Active music classes in infancy enhance musical, communicative and social development

Previous studies suggest that musical training in children can positively affect various aspects of development. However, it remains unknown as to how early in development musical experience can have an effect, the nature of any such effects, and whether different types of music experience affect development differently. We found that random assignment to 6 months of active participatory musical experience beginning at 6 months of age accelerates acquisition of culture-specific knowledge of Western tonality in comparison to a similar amount of passive exposure to music. Furthermore, infants assigned to the active musical experience showed superior development of prelinguistic communicative gestures and social behaviour compared to infants assigned to the passive musical experience. These results indicate that (1) infants can engage in meaningful musical training when appropriate pedagogical approaches are used, (2) active musical participation in infancy enhances culture-specific musical acquisition, and (3) active musical participation in infancy impacts social and communication development.

Music, neuroscience, and the psychology of well-being: a précis

In Flourish, the positive psychologist Seligman (2011) identifies five commonly recognized factors that are characteristic of human flourishing or well-being: (1) "positive emotion," (2) "relationships," (3) "engagement," (4) "achievement," and (5) "meaning" (p. 24). Although there is no settled set of necessary and sufficient conditions neatly circumscribing the bounds of human flourishing (Seligman, 2011), we would mostly likely consider a person that possessed high levels of these five factors as paradigmatic or prototypical of human flourishing. Accordingly, if we wanted to go about the practical task of actually increasing our level of well-being, we ought to do so by focusing on practically increasing the levels of the five factors that are characteristic of well-being. If, for instance, an activity such as musical engagement can be shown to positively influence each or all of these five factors, this would be compelling evidence that an activity such as musical engagement can positively contribute to one's living a flourishing life. I am of the belief that psychological research can and should be used, not only to identify and diagnose maladaptive psychological states, but identify and promote adaptive psychological states as well. In this article I advance the hypothesis and provide supporting evidence for the claim that musical engagement can positively contribute to one's living a flourishing life. Since there has not yet been a substantive and up-to-date investigation of the possible role of music in contributing to one's living a flourishing life, the purpose of this article is to conduct this investigation, thereby bridging the gap and stimulating discussion between the psychology of music and the psychology of well-being.

Continuation tapping to triggered melodies: motor resonance effects of melodic motion

Common Coding theory predicts that perceived action should resonate in produced action to which it bears some resemblance. Here we show that the qualities of motion commonly attributed to melodies are instantiated in motor plans that control timed movements. Participants attempted to tap a steady beat. Each tap triggered a sounded tone, and successive tones were systematically varied in pitch to form short melodies. Tapping behavior was monitored with motion capture. Although instructed to ignore them, triggered tones systematically affected timing and finger movement. When slower melodic motion was implied by a contour change or a smaller pitch displacement, the interval-tap interval (ITI) was longer. When faster melodic motion was implied by a preserved pitch contour or a larger pitch displacement, ITI was shorter. Kinematic recordings suggested that ITI Error arose from an initial failure to disambiguate perception (i.e., velocity implied by melodic motion) from action (i.e., finger velocity [FV]). Early in the tap trajectory, slower FV was associated with longer ITI and faster FV was associated with shorter ITI. These associations were reversed near mid-trajectory, suggesting a transition from execution of motor planning to online control (Glover et al. in Exp Brain Res 154:103-108, 2004).

Subcortical processing of speech regularities underlies reading and music aptitude in children

Background

Neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities supports fundamental human behaviors such as hearing in noise and reading. Although the failure to encode acoustic regularities in ongoing speech has been associated with language and literacy deficits, how auditory expertise, such as the expertise that is associated with musical skill, relates to the brainstem processing of speech regularities is unknown. An association between musical skill and neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities would not be surprising given the importance of repetition and regularity in music. Here, we aimed to define relationships between the subcortical processing of speech regularities, music aptitude, and reading abilities in children with and without reading impairment. We hypothesized that, in combination with auditory cognitive abilities, neural sensitivity to regularities in ongoing speech provides a common biological mechanism underlying the development of music and reading abilities.

Methods

We assessed auditory working memory and attention, music aptitude, reading ability, and neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities in 42 school-aged children with a wide range of reading ability. Neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities was assessed by recording brainstem responses to the same speech sound presented in predictable and variable speech streams.

Results

Through correlation analyses and structural equation modeling, we reveal that music aptitude and literacy both relate to the extent of subcortical adaptation to regularities in ongoing speech as well as with auditory working memory and attention. Relationships between music and speech processing are specifically driven by performance on a musical rhythm task, underscoring the importance of rhythmic regularity for both language and music.

Conclusions

These data indicate common brain mechanisms underlying reading and music abilities that relate to how the nervous system responds to regularities in auditory input. Definition of common biological underpinnings for music and reading supports the usefulness of music for promoting child literacy, with the potential to improve reading remediation.

Musicians demonstrate experience-dependent brainstem enhancement of musical scale features within continuously gliding pitch

In contrast to language, where pitch patterns consist of continuous and curvilinear contours, musical pitch consists of relatively discrete, stair-stepped sequences of notes. Behavioral and neurophysiological studies suggest that both tone-language and music experience enhance the representation of pitch cues associated with a listener's domain of expertise, e.g., curvilinear pitch in language, discrete scale steps in music. We compared brainstem frequency-following responses (FFRs) of English-speaking musicians (musical pitch experience) and native speakers of Mandarin Chinese (linguistic pitch experience) elicited by rising and falling tonal sweeps that are exemplary of Mandarin tonal contours but uncharacteristic of the pitch patterns typically found in music. In spite of musicians' unfamiliarity with such glides, we find that their brainstem FFRs show enhancement of the stimulus where the curvilinear sweep traverses discrete notes along the diatonic musical scale. This enhancement was note specific in that it was not observed immediately preceding or following the scale tone of interest (passing note). No such enhancements were observed in Chinese listeners. These findings suggest that the musician's brainstem may be differentially tuned by long-term exposure to the pitch patterns inherent to music, extracting pitch in relation to a fixed, hierarchical scale.

Investigation of melodic contour processing in the brain using multivariate pattern-based fMRI

Music perception generally involves processing the frequency relationships between successive pitches and extraction of the melodic contour. Previous evidence has suggested that the 'ups' and 'downs' of melodic contour are categorically and automatically processed, but knowledge of the brain regions that discriminate different types of contour is limited. Here, we examined melodic contour discrimination using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) of fMRI data. Twelve non-musicians were presented with various ascending and descending melodic sequences while being scanned. Whole-brain MVPA was used to identify regions in which the local pattern of activity accurately discriminated between contour categories. We identified three distinct cortical loci: the right superior temporal sulcus (rSTS), the left inferior parietal lobule (lIPL), and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). These results complement previous findings of melodic processing within the rSTS, and extend our understanding of the way in which abstract auditory sequences are categorized by the human brain.

Manipulating Greek musical modes and tempo affects perceived musical emotion in musicians and nonmusicians

The combined influence of tempo and mode on emotional responses to music was studied by crossing 7 changes in mode with 3 changes in tempo. Twenty-four musicians aged 19 to 25 years (12 males and 12 females) and 24 nonmusicians aged 17 to 25 years (12 males and 12 females) were required to perform two tasks: 1) listening to different musical excerpts, and 2) associating an emotion to them such as happiness, serenity, fear, anger, or sadness. ANOVA showed that increasing the tempo strongly affected the arousal (F(2,116) = 268.62, mean square error (MSE) = 0.6676, P < 0.001) and, to a lesser extent, the valence of emotional responses (F(6,348) = 8.71, MSE = 0.6196, P < 0.001). Changes in modes modulated the affective valence of the perceived emotions (F(6,348) = 4.24, MSE = 0.6764, P < 0.001). Some interactive effects were found between tempo and mode (F (1,58) = 115.6, MSE = 0.6428, P < 0.001), but, in most cases, the two parameters had additive effects. This finding demonstrates that small changes in the pitch structures of modes modulate the emotions associated with the pieces, confirming the cognitive foundation of emotional responses to music.

Musical intervals and relative pitch: frequency resolution, not interval resolution, is special

Pitch intervals are central to most musical systems, which utilize pitch at the expense of other acoustic dimensions. It seemed plausible that pitch might uniquely permit precise perception of the interval separating two sounds, as this could help explain its importance in music. To explore this notion, a simple discrimination task was used to measure the precision of interval perception for the auditory dimensions of pitch, brightness, and loudness. Interval thresholds were then expressed in units of just-noticeable differences for each dimension, to enable comparison across dimensions. Contrary to expectation, when expressed in these common units, interval acuity was actually worse for pitch than for loudness or brightness. This likely indicates that the perceptual dimension of pitch is unusual not for interval perception per se, but rather for the basic frequency resolution it supports. The ubiquity of pitch in music may be due in part to this fine-grained basic resolution.

Sequential temporo-fronto-temporal activation during monitoring of the auditory environment for temporal patterns

Subjects detected rarely occurring shifts between two simple tone-patterns, in a paradigm that dissociated the effects of rarity from those of pitch, habituation, and attention. Whole-head magnetoencephalography suggested that rare attended pattern-shifts evoked activity first in the superior temporal plane (sTp, peak ~100 ms), then superior temporal sulcus (sTs, peak ~130 ms), then posteroventral prefrontal (pvpF, peak ~230 ms), and anterior temporal cortices (aT, peak ~370 ms). Activity was more prominent in the right hemisphere. After subtracting the effects of nonshift tones (balanced for pitch and habituation status), weak but consistent differential effects of pattern-shifts began in aT at 90-130 ms, spread to sTs and sTp at ∼130 ms, then pvpF, and finally returned to aT. Cingulate activity resembled prefrontal. Responses to pattern shifts were greatly attenuated when the same stimuli were ignored, suggesting that the initial superior temporal activity reflected an attention-related mismatch negativity. The prefrontal activity at ~230 ms corresponded in latency and task correlates with simultaneously recorded event-related potential components N2b and P3a; the subsequent temporal activity corresponded to the P3b. These results were confirmed in sensors specific for frontal or temporal cortex, and thus are independent of the inverse method used. Overall, these results suggest that auditory working memory for temporal patterns begins with detection of the pattern change by an interaction of anterior and superior temporal structures, followed by identification of the event and its consequences led by posteroventral prefrontal and cingulate cortices, and finally, definitive encoding of the event in anterior temporal areas.