The Multiple-Demand System in the Novelty of Musical Improvisation: Evidence from an MRI Study on Composers

Abstract

The multiple-demand (MD) system has proven to be associated with creating structured mental programs in comprehensive behaviors, but the functional mechanisms of this system have not been clarified in the musical domain. In this study, we explored the hypothesis that the MD system is involved in a comprehensive music-related behavior known as musical improvisation. Under a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm, 29 composers were recruited to improvise melodies through visual imagery tasks according to familiar and unfamiliar cues. We found that the main regions of the MD system were significantly activated during both musical improvisation conditions. However, only a greater involvement of the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) within the MD system was shown when improvising with unfamiliar cues. Our results revealed that the MD system strongly participated in musical improvisation through processing the novelty of melodies, working memory, and attention. In particular, improvising with unfamiliar cues required more musical transposition manipulations. Moreover, both functional and structural analyses indicated evidence of neuroplasticity in MD regions that could be associated with musical improvisation training. These findings can help unveil the functional mechanisms of the MD system in musical cognition, as well as improve our understanding of musical improvisation.

Music Improvisation Is Characterized by Increase EEG Spectral Power in Prefrontal and Perceptual Motor Cortical Sources and Can be Reliably Classified From Non-improvisatory Performance

“…It is thought that increased activity in the MFC may denote internally directed attention involved with creativity tasks as well as coordination of complex action underlying sequential planning that is an integral part of improvisation of music (Dolan et al, 2013;Beaty, 2015;Dikaya and Skirtach, 2015;Landau and Limb, 2017;Stevens and Zabelina, 2019). Our finding of greater power for improv over scale in the frontal area comprising regions of the MFC, ACC, and SMA (Figure 2, Table 1) are consistent with many fMRI studies investigating improvisation (Bengtsson et al, 2007;de Manzano and Ullén, 2012a,b;Donnay et al, 2014;Pinho et al, 2014;McPherson et al, 2016;Landau and Limb, 2017;Lu et al, 2017;Dhakal et al, 2019). The low alpha range has been implicated with general attentional demands and the upper alpha band to task-specific demands often related to creativity (Fink and Benedek, 2014).…”

Overcoming Bias: Cognitive Control Reduces Susceptibility to Framing Effects in Evaluating Musical Performance

“…In particular, familiarity with the excerpts could be an important moderating variable that needs to be addressed by future studies. For instance, instead of using existing musical pieces, future studies could test framing effects with improvised or self-composed musical excerpts 42 .…”

Music intervention improves spatial learning and memory and alters serum proteomics profiling in rats

“…Music therapy has a positive effect in various diseases. Study have revealed the functional mechanisms of multiple‐demand system in musical cognition (Lu et al, ). Nevertheless, previous results were not sufficient to explain the mechanism of physiologic alteration by music.…”