0000000000304241
AUTHOR
Mari Etervaniemi
Auditory Profiles of Classical, Jazz, and Rock Musicians: Genre-Specific Sensitivity to Musical Sound Features
When compared with individuals without explicit training in music, adult musicians have facilitated neural functions in several modalities. They also display structural changes in various brain areas, these changes corresponding to the intensity and duration of their musical training. Previous studies have focused on investigating musicians with training in Western classical music. However, musicians involved in different musical genres may display highly differentiated auditory profiles according to the demands set by their genre, i.e., varying importance of different musical sound features. This hypothesis was tested in a novel melody paradigm including deviants in tuning, timbre, rhythm,…
Music Training Enhances Rapid Neural Plasticity of N1 and P2 Source Activation for Unattended Sounds
Neurocognitive studies have demonstrated that long-term music training enhances the processing of unattended sounds. It is not clear, however, whether music training also modulates rapid (within tens of minutes) neural plasticity for sound encoding. To study this phenomenon, we examined whether adult musicians display enhanced rapid neural plasticity compared to non-musicians. More specifically, we compared the modulation of P1, N1, and P2 responses to standard sounds between four unattended passive blocks. Among the standard sounds, infrequently presented deviant sounds were presented (the so-called oddball paradigm). In the middle of the experiment (after two blocks), an active task was p…
The Interplay between Musical and Linguistic Aptitudes: A Review.
According to prevailing views, brain organization is modulated by practice, e.g., during musical or linguistic training. Most recent results, using both neuropsychological tests and brain measures, revealed an intriguing connection between musical aptitude and second language linguistic abilities. A significant relationship between higher musical aptitude, better second language pronunciation skills, accurate chord discrimination ability, and more prominent sound-change-evoked brain activation in response to musical stimuli was found. Moreover, regular music practice may also have a modulatory effect on the brain’s linguistic organization and alter hemispheric functioning in those who have …
Predictive error detection in pianists: A combined ERP and motion capture study
Performing a piece of music involves the interplay of several cognitive and motor processes and requires extensive training to achieve a high skill level. However, even professional musicians commit errors occasionally. Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies have investigated the neurophysiological correlates of pitch errors during piano performance, and reported pre-error negativity already occurring approximately 70–100 ms before the error had been committed and audible. It was assumed that this pre-error negativity reflects predictive control processes that compare predicted consequences with actual consequences of one's own actions. However, in previous investigations, correct a…
Mapping symbols to sounds: electrophysiological correlates of the impaired reading process in dyslexia
Dyslexic and control first-grade school children were compared in a Symbol-to-Sound matching test based on a non-linguistic audiovisual training which is known to have a remediating effect on dyslexia. Visual symbol patterns had to be matched with predicted sound patterns. Sounds incongruent with the corresponding visual symbol (thus not matching the prediction) elicited the N2b and P3a event-related potential (ERP) components relative to congruent sounds in control children. Their ERPs resembled the ERP effects previously reported for healthy adults with this paradigm. In dyslexic children, N2b onset latency was delayed and its amplitude significantly reduced over left hemisphere whereas P…
Processing of audiovisual associations in the human brain: dependency on expectations and rule complexity
In order to respond to environmental changes appropriately, the human brain must not only be able to detect environmental changes but also to form expectations of forthcoming events. The events in the external environment often have a number of multisensory features such as pitch and form. For integrated percepts of objects and events, crossmodal processing, and crossmodally induced expectations of forthcoming events are needed. The aim of the present study was to determine whether the expectations created by visual stimuli can modulate the deviance detection in the auditory modality, as reflected by auditory event-related potentials (ERPs). Additionally, it was studied whether the complexi…