Left-hemisphere activation is associated with enhanced vocal pitch error detection in musicians with absolute pitch

Abstract

The ability to process auditory feedback for vocal pitch control is crucial during speaking and singing. Previous studies have suggested that musicians with absolute pitch (AP) develop specialized left-hemisphere mechanisms for pitch processing. The present study adopted an auditory feedback pitch perturbation paradigm combined with ERP recordings to test the hypothesis whether the neural mechanisms of the left-hemisphere enhance vocal pitch error detection and control in AP musicians compared with relative pitch (RP) musicians and non-musicians (NM). Results showed a stronger N1 response to pitch-shifted voice feedback in the right-hemisphere for both AP and RP musicians compared with the NM group. However, the left-hemisphere P2 component activation was greater in AP and RP musicians compared with NMs and also for the AP compared with RP musicians. The NM group was slower in generating compensatory vocal reactions to feedback pitch perturbation compared with musicians, and they failed to re-adjust their vocal pitch after the feedback perturbation was removed. These findings suggest that in the earlier stages of cortical neural processing, the right hemisphere is more active in musicians for detecting pitch changes in voice feedback. In the later stages, the left-hemisphere is more active during the processing of auditory feedback for vocal motor control and seems to involve specialized mechanisms that facilitate pitch processing in the AP compared with RP musicians. These findings indicate that the left hemisphere mechanisms of AP ability are associated with improved auditory feedback pitch processing during vocal pitch control in tasks such as speaking or singing.

High F0 and musicianship make a difference: Pitch-shift responses across the vocal range

“…While the pitch-shift response paradigm does not confirm that the musically experienced participants were exhibiting more active control, this reasoning is consistent with musicians being able to engage experience dependent brain mechanisms for audio-vocal control and task-dependent modulation of the pitch-shift response (Zarate et al, 2010). This was previously shown to be localized in the left hemisphere where cortical modulation of the pitch-shift response was solely observed in musicians with absolute pitch (Behroozmand et al, 2014). Although we did not test for absolute/relative pitch or neural responses, we suggest that our findings are consistent with amateur musicians being able to exhibit distinct and flexible audio-vocal control.…”

“…In contrast, no group differences in response amplitude were found in the compensate condition. The recent study by Behroozmand et al (2014) that compared musically trained and naive participants with a pitch-shift response paradigm found response timing differences but not magnitude differences, which additionally indicates that suppression is not a universal finding in musician/non-musician comparisons. In our experiment, participants were told to focus on accuracy without specific instructions regarding how to react to the stimulus.…”

“…The divergent pitch-shift response characteristics in singers, particularly the suppression, shown in several studies (Behroozmand et al, 2014;Zarate & Zatorre, 2008;Zarate et al, 2010 ) presumably arises from central neural mechanisms that reduce the gain of the pitch-shift response allowing the vocalist to maintain a target note more effectively than a non-musical person. But we were interested in whether suppression would also be evident in amateur musicians with varied training.…”

“…In general, when musically trained participants are told to ignore pitch-shifted feedback and continue vocalizing at the same pitch, they show greater suppression of the pitch-shift response than musically naïve participants (Zarate & Zatorre, 2005Zarate, Wood, & Zatorre, 2010). Singers also show faster compensatory vocal reactions with quicker returns to baseline following a pitch-shift than non-singers (Behroozmand, Ibrahim, Korzyukov, Robin, & Larson, 2014), have a lower threshold for pitch-shift responses (smaller shift stimuli), and tend to show greater after-effects when the altered auditory feedback is removed, suggesting specific tuning of their internal model for F 0 control (Jones & Keough, 2008;Keough & Jones, 2009). However, it is still unclear whether pitch-shift responses of singers differ at higher vocal frequencies.…”

Sensory–motor networks involved in speech production and motor control: An fMRI study

“…In a more recent study, it has been shown that the P200 response magnitude is correlated with the reaction time of the compensatory vocal responses that stabilize speech against the disruptive effect of unexpected feedback alterations (Behroozmand et al, 2014). Taken together these findings suggest that the motor act of speaking enhances auditory cortical sensitivity for feedback error detection in order to activate the underlying neural mechanisms that influence speech motor control during speaking.…”