Beat Processing Is Pre-Attentive for Metrically Simple Rhythms with Clear Accents: An ERP Study

Bouwer, Fleur L.; Zuijen, Titia L. van; Honing, Henkjan

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0097467

Cited by 66 publications

(132 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(62 reference statements)

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“…Our neurophysiological results support Shannon entropy as a valuable measure of (perceived) temporal complexity of short rhythmic patterns (Shmulevich & Povel, ; Temperley, ). Past work attempted to relate rhythmic complexity and neural prediction error by taking a music‐theoretical approach: complexity was operationalized as the degree of perceived tension created by going against metrically salient pulses (Bouwer & Honing, ; Bouwer, Van Zuijen, & Honing, ; Vuust & Witek, ). In this respect, music‐theoretical analyses have quantified rhythmic complexity in various ways: based on increasing values in the time signature, increasing number of beat subdivisions and estimates of the level of syncopation in notated music (Gómez, Thul, & Toussaint, ; Shmulevich & Povel, ; Vuust & Witek, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Weighting of neural prediction error by rhythmic complexity: A predictive coding account using mismatch negativity

Lumaca

Haumann

Brattico

et al. 2019

Eur J of Neuroscience

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The human brain's ability to extract and encode temporal regularities and to predict the timing of upcoming events is critical for music and speech perception. This work addresses how these mechanisms deal with different levels of temporal complexity, here the number of distinct durations in rhythmic patterns. We use electroencephalography (EEG) to relate the mismatch negativity (MMN), a proxy of neural prediction error, to a measure of information content of rhythmic sequences, the Shannon entropy. Within each of three conditions, participants listened to repeatedly presented standard rhythms of five tones (four inter‐onset intervals) and of a given level of entropy: zero (isochronous), medium entropy (two distinct interval durations), or high entropy (four distinct interval durations). Occasionally, the fourth tone was moved forward in time that is it occurred 100 ms (small deviation) or 300 ms early (large deviation). According to the predictive coding framework, high‐entropy stimuli are more difficult to model for the brain, resulting in less confident predictions and yielding smaller prediction errors for deviant sounds. Our results support this hypothesis, showing a gradual decrease in MMN amplitude as a function of entropy, but only for small timing deviants. For large timing deviants, in contrast, a modulation of activity in the opposite direction was observed for the earlier N1 component, known to also be sensitive to sudden changes in directed attention. Our results suggest the existence of a fine‐grained neural mechanism that weights neural prediction error to the complexity of rhythms and that mostly manifests in the absence of directed attention.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Weighting of neural prediction error by rhythmic complexity: A predictive coding account using mismatch negativity

Lumaca

Haumann

Brattico

et al. 2019

Eur J of Neuroscience

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“…Thus, rhythm is processed in parallel with beat in music perception. In an oddball detection task, an MMN component was elicited in normal listeners when a metrically weak position was placed with an accented event (Geiser, Sandmann, Jäncke, & Meyer, 2010;Vuust et al, 2005Vuust et al, , 2009 and when a rhythmic event in a metrically strong position was omitted (Bouwer, Van Zuijen, & Honing, 2014;Winkler et al, 2009). Compared to nonmusicians, musicians showed a larger MMN amplitude in the oddball tasks, suggesting greater sensitivity to the mismatch between an accented event and a metrically weak position in musicians than nonmusicians (Geiser et al, 2010;Vuust et al, 2005Vuust et al, , 2009.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Musical training modulates the early but not the late stage of rhythmic syntactic processing

et al. 2017

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Syntactic processing is essential for musical understanding. Although the processing of harmonic syntax has been well studied, very little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying rhythmic syntactic processing. The present study investigated the neural processing of rhythmic syntax and whether and to what extent long-term musical training impacts such processing. Fourteen musicians and 14 nonmusicians listened to syntactic-regular or syntactic-irregular rhythmic sequences and judged the completeness of these sequences. Nonmusicians, as well as musicians, showed a P600 effect to syntactic-irregular endings, indicating that musical exposure and perceptual learning of music are sufficient to enable nonmusicians to process rhythmic syntax at the late stage. However, musicians, but not nonmusicians, also exhibited an early right anterior negativity (ERAN) response to syntactic-irregular endings, which suggests that musical training only modulates the early but not the late stage of rhythmic syntactic processing. These findings revealed for the first time the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of rhythmic syntax in music, which has important implications for theories of hierarchically organized music cognition and comparative studies of syntactic processing in music and language.

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“…In addition to the effects of beat-based and memory-based expectations on behavioral and auditory responses, we examined the effects of task relevance on both types of expectations. Entrainment and beat-based processing have been shown to be somewhat independent of task relevance (Bouwer, Van Zuijen, & Honing, 2014;Bouwer, Werner, Knetemann, & Honing, 2016;Breska & Deouell, 2014;Rohenkohl, Coull, & Nobre, 2011).…”

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confidence: 99%

Beat-based and memory-based temporal expectations in rhythm: similar perceptual effects, different underlying mechanisms

Bouwer

Honing

Slagter

2019

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Predicting the timing of incoming information allows the brain to optimize information processing in dynamic environments. Behaviorally, temporal expectations have been shown to facilitate processing of events at expected time points, such as sounds that coincide with the beat in musical rhythm. Yet, temporal expectations can develop based on different forms of structure in the environment, not just the regularity afforded by a musical beat. Little is still known about how different types of temporal expectations are neurally implemented and affect performance. Here, we orthogonally manipulated the periodicity and predictability of rhythmic sequences to examine the mechanisms underlying beat-based and memory-based temporal expectations, respectively. Behaviorally and using EEG, we looked at the effects of beat-based and memory-based expectations on auditory processing when rhythms were task relevant or task irrelevant. At expected time points, both beat-based and memory-based expectations facilitated target detection and led to attenuation of P1 and N1 responses, even when expectations were task-irrelevant (unattended). For beat-based expectations, we additionally found reduced target detection and enhanced N1 responses for events at unexpected time points (e.g., off-beat), regardless of the presence of memory-based expectations or task relevance. This latter finding supports the notion that periodicity selectively induces rhythmic fluctuations in neural excitability and furthermore indicates that while beat-based and memory-based expectations may similarly affect auditory processing of expected events, their underlying neural mechanisms may be different.

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Beat Processing Is Pre-Attentive for Metrically Simple Rhythms with Clear Accents: An ERP Study

Cited by 66 publications

References 42 publications

Weighting of neural prediction error by rhythmic complexity: A predictive coding account using mismatch negativity

Weighting of neural prediction error by rhythmic complexity: A predictive coding account using mismatch negativity

Musical training modulates the early but not the late stage of rhythmic syntactic processing

Beat-based and memory-based temporal expectations in rhythm: similar perceptual effects, different underlying mechanisms

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