Tonal Expectations Influence Early Pitch Processing

Abstract

The present study investigated the ERP correlates of the influence of tonal expectations on pitch processing. Participants performed a pitch discrimination task between penultimate and final tones of melodies. These last two tones were a repetition of the same musical note, but penultimate tones were always in tune whereas final tones were slightly out of tune in half of the trials. The pitch discrimination task allowed us to investigate the influence of tonal expectations in attentive listening and, for penultimate tones, without being confounded by decisional processes (occurring on final tones). Tonal expectations were manipulated by a tone change in the first half of the melodies that changed their tonality, hence changing the tonal expectedness of penultimate and final tones without modifying them acoustically. Manipulating tonal expectations with minimal acoustic changes allowed us to focus on the cognitive expectations based on listeners' knowledge of tonal structures. For penultimate tones, tonal expectations modulated processing within the first 100 msec after onset resulting in an Nb/P1 complex that differed in amplitude between tonally related and less related conditions. For final tones, out-of-tune tones elicited an N2/P3 complex and, on in-tune tones only, tonal manipulation elicited an ERAN/RATN-like negativity overlapping with the N2. Our results suggest that cognitive tonal expectations can influence pitch perception at several steps of processing, starting with early attentional selection of pitch.

Metrical Presentation Boosts Implicit Learning of Artificial Grammar

“…This result is in agreement with previous findings observed for the processing of pitch deviations. In Marmel et al [39], out-of-tune tones elicited a larger N2/P3 complex than in-tune tones. Furthermore, incongruities in pitch contour have been also reported to elicit a larger negative component that ended around 200 ms followed by a large positivity between 200 and 800 ms [40].…”

Prior Experience Biases Subcortical Sensitivity to Sound Patterns

“…Cadences are common phrase endings in Western music, which in addition to increasing the musicality of the sequence may have facilitated learning the novel sound sequenceʼs statistics. Although our participants may not have been explicitly aware of the rules governing the structure of music, previous work suggests that musical knowledge is gained implicitly, as seen by sensitivity to musical rules in both behavioral and neurophysiological assessments (Marmel, Parbery-Clark, et al, 2011;Marmel, Perrin, & Tillmann, 2011;Loui et al, 2010;Koelsch & Jentschke, 2008). Given this strong sensitivity to previously learned musical structure, we argue that participants were likely deriving statistical probabilities within the continuous sound sequence based on both present context (i.e., statistical structure of the incoming novel sound stream) and past learning of statistically probable musical combinations (Kelly, Johnson, Delgutte, & Cariani, 1996), resulting in greater neural and behavioral sensitivity to the more musical condition.…”

Segregating the Neural Correlates of Physical and Perceived Change in Auditory Input using the Change Deafness Effect

“…Interestingly, this effect was found for frequency changes but not for other acoustic deviants (Leung, Cornella, Grimm, & Escera, 2012). Therefore, the response is unlikely to reflect explicit change detection mechanisms but rather early stages of pitch processing (Alho, Grimm, Mateo-Leon, Costa-Faidella, & Escera, 2012;Marmel, Perrin, & Tillmann, 2011). The spread of activity along the posterior rim of Heschlʼs gyrus might reflect the tonotopic gradient observed in this region (Langers, de Kleine, & van Dijk, 2012).…”