Enculturation Effects in Music Cognition

Morrison, Steven J.; Demorest, Steven M.; Stambaugh, Laura A.

doi:10.1177/0022429408322854

Cited by 45 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(43 reference statements)

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“…However, this process rests on the "musical knowledge" that listeners acquire and encode through frequent exposure in their daily lives (Tillmann et al 2000). Ultimately, this knowledge shapes their expectations, determining what constitutes a "familiar" musical style that they are likely to understand and appreciate (Morrison et al 2008;Hannon et al 2012;Pearce 2018). A similar process has been demonstrated in many domains of human learning (e.g., language; Saffran et al 1997;Toro et al 2005;Finn et al 201s4), as well as in animals that must learn their species-specific songs and vocalizations (Woolley 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cortical encoding of melodic expectations in human temporal cortex

Liberto¹,

Pelofi²,

Bianco³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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SummaryHumans engagement in music rests on underlying elements such as the listeners’ cultural background and general interest in music, all shaping the way music is processed in the brain and perceived. Crucially, these factors modulate how listeners anticipate musical events, a process inducing instantaneous neural responses as the music confronts these expectations. Measuring such neural correlates would represent a direct window into high-level brain processing of music. Here we recorded electroencephalographic and electrocorticographic brain responses as participants listened to Bach melodies. We assessed the relative contributions of the acoustic versus melodic components of the music to the neural signal. Acoustic features included envelope and its derivative. Melodic features included information on melodic progressions (pitch) and their tempo (onsets), which were extracted from a Markov model predicting the next note based on a corpus of Western music and the preceding proximal musical context. We related the music to brain activity with a linear temporal response function, and demonstrated that cortical responses to music encode melodic expectations. Specifically, individual-subject neural signals were better predicted by a combination of acoustic and melodic expectation features than by either alone. This effect was most pronounced at response latencies up to 350ms, and in both planum temporale and Heschl’s gyrus. Finally, expectations of pitch and onset-time of musical notes exerted independent cortical effects, and such influences were modulated by the listeners’ musical expertise. Overall, this study demonstrates how the interplay of experimental and theoretical approaches can yield novel insights into the cortical encoding of melodic expectations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cortical encoding of melodic expectations in human temporal cortex

Liberto¹,

Pelofi²,

Bianco³

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Musical knowledge develops implicitly by listening to the radio, hearing TV theme songs, singing in school, etc. (Loui, Wessel, & Hudson Kam, 2010;Morrison, Demorest, & Stambaugh, 2008;Schellenberg, Bigand, Poulin-Charronnat, Garnier, & Stevens, 2005;Krumhansl & Keil, 1982). In fact, even without formal music training, kindergarten children have acquired substantial tacit knowledge about the structures defining their cultureʼs music, including which sound combinations are more common (Schellenberg et al, 2005;Vos & Troost, 1989;Krumhansl & Keil, 1982).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prior Experience Biases Subcortical Sensitivity to Sound Patterns

Skoe¹,

Krizman²,

Spitzer³

et al. 2015

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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To make sense of our ever-changing world, our brains search out patterns. This drive can be so strong that the brain imposes patterns when there are none. The opposite can also occur: The brain can overlook patterns because they do not conform to expectations. In this study, we examined this neural sensitivity to patterns within the auditory brainstem, an evolutionarily ancient part of the brain that can be fine-tuned by experience and is integral to an array of cognitive functions. We have recently shown that this auditory hub is sensitive to patterns embedded within a novel sound stream, and we established a link between neural sensitivity and behavioral indices of learning [Skoe, E., Krizman, J., Spitzer, E., & Kraus, N. The auditory brainstem is a barometer of rapid auditory learning. Neuroscience, 243, 104-114, 2013]. We now ask whether this sensitivity to stimulus statistics is biased by prior experience and the expectations arising from this experience. To address this question, we recorded complex auditory brainstem responses (cABRs) to two patterned sound sequences formed from a set of eight repeating tones. For both patterned sequences, the eight tones were presented such that the transitional probability (TP) between neighboring tones was either 33% (low predictability) or 100% (high predictability). Although both sequences were novel to the healthy young adult listener and had similar TP distributions, one was perceived to be more musical than the other. For the more musical sequence, participants performed above chance when tested on their recognition of the most predictable two-tone combinations within the sequence (TP of 100%); in this case, the cABR differed from a baseline condition where the sound sequence had no predictable structure. In contrast, for the less musical sequence, learning was at chance, suggesting that listeners were "deaf" to the highly predictable repeating two-tone combinations in the sequence. For this condition, the cABR also did not differ from baseline. From this, we posit that the brainstem acts as a Bayesian sound processor, such that it factors in prior knowledge about the environment to index the probability of particular events within ever-changing sensory conditions.

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“…Using fMRI, Morrison, Demorest, Aylward, Cramer, and Maravilla (2003) compared responses to culturally-native versus culturally-unfamiliar music and found no such differences in neural activation (see also Demorest, Morrison, Beken, & Jungbuth, 2008;Morrison, Demorest, & Stambaugh, 2008). Extending this work, however, they later found significant differences in areas of the superior temporal gyrus (the raised sausageappearing ridge indicated by the yellow arrow in Figure 2) bilaterally (that is, in both brain hemispheres) when Western and Turkish participants listened to music from their own culture versus the other's culture, or from a third culture unfamiliar to both (i.e., Chinese music; Demorest et al, 2010).…”

Section: Musicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural Neuroscience: A Historical Introduction and Overview

Rule¹

2014

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

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Enculturation Effects in Music Cognition

Cited by 45 publications

References 35 publications

Cortical encoding of melodic expectations in human temporal cortex

Cortical encoding of melodic expectations in human temporal cortex

Prior Experience Biases Subcortical Sensitivity to Sound Patterns

Cultural Neuroscience: A Historical Introduction and Overview

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