Sweet anticipation: Predictability of familiar music in autism

Abstract

Autism has been characterised by different behavioural and cognitive profiles compared to typically developing (TD) individuals, and increasingly these differences have been associated with differences in structural and functional brain connectivity. It is currently unknown as to whether autistic and TD listeners process music in the same way: emotionally, mnemonically, and perceptually. The present study explores the brain's dynamical landscape linked to music familiarity in an fMRI dataset from autistic and TD individuals. Group analysis using leading eigenvector dynamics analysis (LEiDA) revealed significantly higher probability of occurrence of a brain network in TD compared to autistic individuals during listening to familiar music. This network includes limbic and paralimbic areas (amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and temporal pole). No significant differences were found between autistic and TD individuals while listening to a scrambled, i.e. unfamiliar and more unpredictable, version of the same music track. These findings provide novel neuroimaging insights into how autistic prediction monitoring may shape brain networks during listening to familiar musical excerpts.

Revealing Preference in Popular Music Through Familiarity and Brain Response

“…Finally, we believe that music has a potential impact on the contribution to many industries, not only to music industries. We suggest applying the experiment to biomedical and healthcare industries since preferred and familiar music are commonly mentioned in studying the autism [46]- [48] and dementia [49]- [51]. In fact, understanding musical taste of other people is complicated matter, even for those who are close.…”