Perception of nonadjacent tonic-key relationships

Woolhouse, Matthew; Cross, Ian; Horton, Timothy

doi:10.1177/0305735615593409

Cited by 14 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…There are many similarities between language and musical syntaxes. Both are compositional and hierarchical (Merker, 2002 ) and both generate long-distance dependencies (Bickerton, 2009 ; Woolhouse et al, 2016 ). The default mode of language—speech—is like music in the auditory domain, and it has been observed that the processing of music and speech syntactic tasks activates the peri-Sylvian network which connects the inferior frontal gyrus with sensory cortices located in the temporal lobes (Fitch, 2014 ).…”

Section: Musical Syntax As a Music Specific Featurementioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of the Baldwin Effect in the Evolution of Human Musicality

Podlipniak

2017

Front. Neurosci.

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From the biological perspective human musicality is the term referred to as a set of abilities which enable the recognition and production of music. Since music is a complex phenomenon which consists of features that represent different stages of the evolution of human auditory abilities, the question concerning the evolutionary origin of music must focus mainly on music specific properties and their possible biological function or functions. What usually differentiates music from other forms of human sound expressions is a syntactically organized structure based on pitch classes and rhythmic units measured in reference to musical pulse. This structure is an auditory (not acoustical) phenomenon, meaning that it is a human-specific interpretation of sounds achieved thanks to certain characteristics of the nervous system. There is historical and cross-cultural diversity of this structure which indicates that learning is an important part of the development of human musicality. However, the fact that there is no culture without music, the syntax of which is implicitly learned and easily recognizable, suggests that human musicality may be an adaptive phenomenon. If the use of syntactically organized structure as a communicative phenomenon were adaptive it would be only in circumstances in which this structure is recognizable by more than one individual. Therefore, there is a problem to explain the adaptive value of an ability to recognize a syntactically organized structure that appeared accidentally as the result of mutation or recombination in an environment without a syntactically organized structure. The possible solution could be explained by the Baldwin effect in which a culturally invented trait is transformed into an instinctive trait by the means of natural selection. It is proposed that in the beginning musical structure was invented and learned thanks to neural plasticity. Because structurally organized music appeared adaptive (phenotypic adaptation) e.g., as a tool of social consolidation, our predecessors started to spend a lot of time and energy on music. In such circumstances, accidentally one individual was born with the genetically controlled development of new neural circuitry which allowed him or her to learn music faster and with less energy use.

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Section: Musical Syntax As a Music Specific Featurementioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of the Baldwin Effect in the Evolution of Human Musicality

Podlipniak

2017

Front. Neurosci.

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“…Similarly, the formation of the musical sentence “key 1-key 2-key 1,” is formed by center-embedding “key 2” on top of “key 1” at higher-level. To process such center-embedded structure, learners need to integrate the separate syntactic dependency in “key 1” harmonic context (Rohrmeier and Cross, 2009 ; Koelsch et al, 2013 ; Woolhouse et al, 2015 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The two components have been taken as the indexes of the degree of consistency of an incoming chord to the contextual syntactic constraint (Koelsch et al, 2000 ; Poulin-Charronnat et al, 2006 ; Koelsch and Jentschke, 2009 ; Koelsch et al, 2013 ). Comparatively, fewer studies have explored the integration of complex recursive or center-embedded structure in music (Tillmann et al, 1998 ; Rohrmeier and Cross, 2009 ; Koelsch et al, 2013 ; Woolhouse et al, 2015 ). Until recently, Koelsch et al ( 2013 ) investigated the ERP patterns corresponding to hierarchical (center-embedded) structure processing, and found that the syntactically less-related relationship in long-distance dependencies between the final chords and the first phrase induced greater ERAN and N5 components, and their time windows were not significantly different from those in response to non-embedded structures, as found in previous studies (Poulin-Charronnat et al, 2006 ; Koelsch and Jentschke, 2009 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using ERPs and oscillatory neural activity, the present study directly compared the cognitive and neural oscillatory mechanisms underlying the processing of two kinds of musical syntactic structures, center-embedded and non-embedded structures. Two type of syntactic sequences differing in complexity were used in this study: a simple structure without modulation or transposition (without a key change from the original key to another) was defined as a non-embedded structure, whereas a complex structure with modulation or transposition (with a key change) in the center of the sequence was defined as a center-embedded and recursive structure according to the GSM and GTTM (Lerdahl and Jackendoff, 1987 ; Rohrmeier and Cross, 2009 ; Rohrmeier, 2011 ; Koelsch et al, 2013 ; Woolhouse et al, 2015 ). The center-embedded sequences were selected from previous studies (Koelsch et al, 2013 ), and the non-embedded sequences were obtained by modifying the same center-embedded sequences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Differences in Neurocognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Processing of Center-Embedded and Non–embedded Musical Structures

Xie

Ding

Yun

et al. 2018

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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In music, chords are organized into hierarchical structures based on recursive or embedded syntax. How the brain extracts recursive grammar is a central question in musical cognition and other cognitive neuroscience, but the precise mechanism remains unclear. By analyzing event related potentials (ERPs) and neural oscillatory activity, the present study investigated neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the processing of center-embedded structure in music by examining the differences in center-embedded and non-embedded structure processing and evaluating how these differences are affected by musical proficiency. Based on Western musical proficiency, the subjects were divided into two groups, non-experts and experts. The results revealed that for non-experts, the processing of center-embedded structure elicited greater early right-anterior negativity (ERAN) and N5 components as well as, reduced alpha and gamma activities than did the non-embedded structure. For experts, no significant difference in the ERP response was observed between the processing of non-embedded and center-embedded structures; however, the processing of center-embedded structure elicited increased beta activity compared to non-embedded structure. These findings indicate that listeners different in proficiency would rely on different cognitive neural mechanisms in music processing with the syntactic complexity increases.

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“…These authors also discuss the variety and complexity of potential influences on pitch alignment. However, other work does claim non-local dependencies in musical syntax and key relationships [18,19]. Presumably local and global influences both exist, and their complexities are such that it will be some time before we can describe them well, let alone explain them.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Pitch-interval analysis of ‘periodic’ and ‘aperiodic’ Question+Answer pairs

Canto¹,

Hawkins²,

Cross³

et al. 2016

Speech Prosody 2016

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In English Question+Answer (Q+A) pairs, periodicity typically emerges across turn space, to a degree of precision matching standards of music perception. Interactionallyaligned Q+A pairs display such shared periodicity across the turn, while unaligned pairs do not. Periodicity is measured as temporal location of f0 maxima or minima, 'pikes', in successive accented syllables. This study asks whether periodicity of pikes across a turn is accompanied by systematic use of musical pitch intervals across the turn space. Recordings of 77 Q+A pairs from 8 pairs of native English speakers talking naturally. Ratios of f0 in the last pike of the Question and the first of the Answer fell more reliably into Western musical interval categories when the Q+A pair's turn transition was periodic (the Answer was aligned or preferred, re the Question) than when it was aperiodic (disaligned, dispreferred). Similar results were found for ratios of modal f0. Such pitch ratios are better described by musical interval categories of Western tuning systems than by those of three non-Western systems, and best of all by semitones, suggesting close connections between culturally-specific uses of pitch in conversation and in music. Judgments of arousal/valence suggest weak relations with specific pitch intervals. Theoretical implications are discussed.

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Perception of nonadjacent tonic-key relationships

Cited by 14 publications

References 35 publications

The Role of the Baldwin Effect in the Evolution of Human Musicality

The Role of the Baldwin Effect in the Evolution of Human Musicality

Differences in Neurocognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Processing of Center-Embedded and Non–embedded Musical Structures

Pitch-interval analysis of ‘periodic’ and ‘aperiodic’ Question+Answer pairs

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