<p>Absolute Pitch test online experiment - html currently hosted at www.musicianbrain.com/a... more <p>Absolute Pitch test online experiment - html currently hosted at www.musicianbrain.com/aptest </p
<p>Here are the experiment files used in the following publication:</p> <p>Loui... more <p>Here are the experiment files used in the following publication:</p> <p>Loui, P., Wessel, D. L., & Hudson Kam, C. L. (2010). Humans Rapidly Learn Grammatical Structure in a New Musical Scale. Music Perception, 27(5), 377-388.</p> <p>version 1 - Pure5.zip is Experiment 1</p> <p>version 3 - Pure400.zip is Experiments 2 and 3</p
Knowledge of speech and music depends upon the ability to perceive relationships between sounds i... more Knowledge of speech and music depends upon the ability to perceive relationships between sounds in order to form a stable mental representation of statistical structure. Although evidence exists for the learning of musical scale structure from the statistical properties of sound events, little research has been able to observe how specific acoustic features contribute to statistical learning independent of the effects of long-term exposure. Here, using a new musical system, we show that spectral content is an important cue for acquiring musical scale structure. In two experiments, participants completed probe-tone ratings before and after a half-hour period of exposure to melodies in a novel musical scale with a predefined statistical structure. In Experiment 1, participants were randomly assigned to either a no-exposure control group, or to exposure groups who heard pure tone or complex tone sequences. In Experiment 2, participants were randomly assigned to exposure groups who heard complex tones constructed with odd harmonics or even harmonics. Learning outcome was assessed by correlating pre/post-exposure ratings and the statistical structure of tones within the exposure period. Spectral information significantly affected sensitivity to statistical structure: participants were able to learn after exposure to all tested timbres, but did best at learning with timbres with odd harmonics, which were congruent with scale structure. Results show that spectral amplitude distribution is a useful cue for statistical learning, and suggest that musical scale structure might be acquired through exposure to spectral distribution in sounds.
In this response to "Tonality and Racism" by Jason Yust in Journal of Music Theory, I r... more In this response to "Tonality and Racism" by Jason Yust in Journal of Music Theory, I review the historical beginnings of alternate tuning systems, in particular the Bohlen-Pierce scale, and propose that the study of predictions across multiple levels of analysis, such as for new music, offers a productively generalizable step moving forward.
In the present study we examine the ability of humans to acquire knowledge via passive exposure t... more In the present study we examine the ability of humans to acquire knowledge via passive exposure to a new musical system. We designed two new musical grammars based on a non-Western tuning system, and created melodies as legal exemplars of each grammar. In two experiments each participant was exposed to a set of melodies from one grammar. Several tests were conducted to assess learning, including forced-choice recognition and generalization, pre-and post-exposure probe tone ratings, and subjective preference ratings. In Experiment 1, five melodies were presented repeatedly. Participants correctly recognized and preferred melodies they had heard, but failed to generalize their recognition to new exemplars of the same grammar. In Experiment 2, 15 melodies were presented repeatedly. Participants showed some tendency to make generalizations about new melodies in their given grammar, and also showed an increased sensitivity to the statistics of the musical grammar following exposure. Resu...
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00790 Thrills, chills, frissons, and skin orgasms: toward an integrative ... more doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00790 Thrills, chills, frissons, and skin orgasms: toward an integrative model of transcendent psychophysiological experiences in music
Music is an art form that elicits rich and complex experiences. In this chapter we provide a hist... more Music is an art form that elicits rich and complex experiences. In this chapter we provide a historical and methodological background for the cognitive neuroscience of music, followed by a brief review of representative studies that highlight the brain areas and networks necessary for music. Together, these studies dispel the myth that a single area, lobe, or hemisphere of the brain is "responsible for" music, and support the notion that distributed brain areas function together in networks that give rise to distinct aspects of the musical experience.
Handbook of Artificial Intelligence for Music, 2021
One of the most remarkable abilities of the human brain is to create. Creativity is the cornersto... more One of the most remarkable abilities of the human brain is to create. Creativity is the cornerstone of human culture, and is the core cognitive capacity that has enabled music throughout history. Much of the act of creating new music, such as in music composition, is an effortful process that requires prolonged persistence, motivation, and dedication. However, other aspects of musical creativity, such as musical improvisation, have an appearance of spontaneity and automaticity, and appear to depend on states of flow that seize the improviser as they encounter musical ideas and produce novel musical output seemingly in real time. How is this real-time creativity possible: how does the brain tackle the problem of musical improvisation, and how does it accomplish this feat? Can improvisation be learned, and if so, how?
The neuroscience of music and music-based interventions (MBIs) is a fascinating but challenging r... more The neuroscience of music and music-based interventions (MBIs) is a fascinating but challenging research field. While music is a ubiquitous component of every human society, MBIs may encompass listening to music, performing music, music-based movement, undergoing music education and training, or receiving treatment from music therapists. Unraveling the brain circuits activated and influenced by MBIs may help us gain better understanding of the therapeutic and educational values of MBIs by gathering strong research evidence. However, the complexity and variety of MBIs impose unique research challenges. This article reviews the recent endeavor led by the National Institutes of Health to support evidence-based research of MBIs and their impact on health and diseases. It also highlights fundamental challenges and strategies of MBI research with emphases on the utilization of animal models, human brain imaging and stimulation technologies, behavior and motion capturing tools, and computational approaches. It concludes with suggestions of basic requirements when studying MBIs and promising future directions to further strengthen evidence-based research on MBIs in connections with brain circuitry.
Pleasure in music has been linked to predictive coding of melodic and rhythmic patterns, subserve... more Pleasure in music has been linked to predictive coding of melodic and rhythmic patterns, subserved by connectivity between regions in the brain's auditory and reward networks. Specific musical anhedonics derive little pleasure from music and have altered auditory-reward connectivity, but no difficulties with music perception abilities and no generalized physical anhedonia. Recent research suggests that specific musical anhedonics experience pleasure in nonmusical sounds, suggesting that the implicated brain pathways may be specific to music reward. However, this work used sounds with clear real-world sources (e.g., babies laughing, crowds cheering), so positive hedonic responses could be based on the referents of these sounds rather than the sounds themselves. We presented specific musical anhedonics and matched controls with isolated short pleasing and displeasing synthesized sounds of varying timbres with no clear real-world referents. While the two groups found displeasing sounds equally displeasing, the musical anhedonics gave substantially lower pleasure ratings to the pleasing sounds, indicating that their sonic anhedonia is not limited to musical rhythms and melodies. Furthermore, across a large sample of participants, mean pleasure ratings for pleasing synthesized sounds predicted significant and similar variance in six dimensions of musical reward considered to be relatively independent, suggesting that pleasure in sonic timbres play a role in eliciting reward-related responses to music. We replicate the earlier findings of preserved pleasure ratings for semantically referential sounds in musical anhedonics and find that pleasure ratings of semantic referents, when presented without sounds, correlated with ratings for the sounds themselves. This association was stronger in musical anhedonics than in controls, suggesting the use of semantic knowledge as a compensatory mechanism for affective sound processing. Our results indicate that specific musical anhedonia is not entirely specific to melodic and rhythmic processing, and suggest that timbre merits further research as a source of pleasure in music.
<p>Absolute Pitch test online experiment - html currently hosted at www.musicianbrain.com/a... more <p>Absolute Pitch test online experiment - html currently hosted at www.musicianbrain.com/aptest </p
<p>Here are the experiment files used in the following publication:</p> <p>Loui... more <p>Here are the experiment files used in the following publication:</p> <p>Loui, P., Wessel, D. L., & Hudson Kam, C. L. (2010). Humans Rapidly Learn Grammatical Structure in a New Musical Scale. Music Perception, 27(5), 377-388.</p> <p>version 1 - Pure5.zip is Experiment 1</p> <p>version 3 - Pure400.zip is Experiments 2 and 3</p
Knowledge of speech and music depends upon the ability to perceive relationships between sounds i... more Knowledge of speech and music depends upon the ability to perceive relationships between sounds in order to form a stable mental representation of statistical structure. Although evidence exists for the learning of musical scale structure from the statistical properties of sound events, little research has been able to observe how specific acoustic features contribute to statistical learning independent of the effects of long-term exposure. Here, using a new musical system, we show that spectral content is an important cue for acquiring musical scale structure. In two experiments, participants completed probe-tone ratings before and after a half-hour period of exposure to melodies in a novel musical scale with a predefined statistical structure. In Experiment 1, participants were randomly assigned to either a no-exposure control group, or to exposure groups who heard pure tone or complex tone sequences. In Experiment 2, participants were randomly assigned to exposure groups who heard complex tones constructed with odd harmonics or even harmonics. Learning outcome was assessed by correlating pre/post-exposure ratings and the statistical structure of tones within the exposure period. Spectral information significantly affected sensitivity to statistical structure: participants were able to learn after exposure to all tested timbres, but did best at learning with timbres with odd harmonics, which were congruent with scale structure. Results show that spectral amplitude distribution is a useful cue for statistical learning, and suggest that musical scale structure might be acquired through exposure to spectral distribution in sounds.
In this response to "Tonality and Racism" by Jason Yust in Journal of Music Theory, I r... more In this response to "Tonality and Racism" by Jason Yust in Journal of Music Theory, I review the historical beginnings of alternate tuning systems, in particular the Bohlen-Pierce scale, and propose that the study of predictions across multiple levels of analysis, such as for new music, offers a productively generalizable step moving forward.
In the present study we examine the ability of humans to acquire knowledge via passive exposure t... more In the present study we examine the ability of humans to acquire knowledge via passive exposure to a new musical system. We designed two new musical grammars based on a non-Western tuning system, and created melodies as legal exemplars of each grammar. In two experiments each participant was exposed to a set of melodies from one grammar. Several tests were conducted to assess learning, including forced-choice recognition and generalization, pre-and post-exposure probe tone ratings, and subjective preference ratings. In Experiment 1, five melodies were presented repeatedly. Participants correctly recognized and preferred melodies they had heard, but failed to generalize their recognition to new exemplars of the same grammar. In Experiment 2, 15 melodies were presented repeatedly. Participants showed some tendency to make generalizations about new melodies in their given grammar, and also showed an increased sensitivity to the statistics of the musical grammar following exposure. Resu...
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00790 Thrills, chills, frissons, and skin orgasms: toward an integrative ... more doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00790 Thrills, chills, frissons, and skin orgasms: toward an integrative model of transcendent psychophysiological experiences in music
Music is an art form that elicits rich and complex experiences. In this chapter we provide a hist... more Music is an art form that elicits rich and complex experiences. In this chapter we provide a historical and methodological background for the cognitive neuroscience of music, followed by a brief review of representative studies that highlight the brain areas and networks necessary for music. Together, these studies dispel the myth that a single area, lobe, or hemisphere of the brain is "responsible for" music, and support the notion that distributed brain areas function together in networks that give rise to distinct aspects of the musical experience.
Handbook of Artificial Intelligence for Music, 2021
One of the most remarkable abilities of the human brain is to create. Creativity is the cornersto... more One of the most remarkable abilities of the human brain is to create. Creativity is the cornerstone of human culture, and is the core cognitive capacity that has enabled music throughout history. Much of the act of creating new music, such as in music composition, is an effortful process that requires prolonged persistence, motivation, and dedication. However, other aspects of musical creativity, such as musical improvisation, have an appearance of spontaneity and automaticity, and appear to depend on states of flow that seize the improviser as they encounter musical ideas and produce novel musical output seemingly in real time. How is this real-time creativity possible: how does the brain tackle the problem of musical improvisation, and how does it accomplish this feat? Can improvisation be learned, and if so, how?
The neuroscience of music and music-based interventions (MBIs) is a fascinating but challenging r... more The neuroscience of music and music-based interventions (MBIs) is a fascinating but challenging research field. While music is a ubiquitous component of every human society, MBIs may encompass listening to music, performing music, music-based movement, undergoing music education and training, or receiving treatment from music therapists. Unraveling the brain circuits activated and influenced by MBIs may help us gain better understanding of the therapeutic and educational values of MBIs by gathering strong research evidence. However, the complexity and variety of MBIs impose unique research challenges. This article reviews the recent endeavor led by the National Institutes of Health to support evidence-based research of MBIs and their impact on health and diseases. It also highlights fundamental challenges and strategies of MBI research with emphases on the utilization of animal models, human brain imaging and stimulation technologies, behavior and motion capturing tools, and computational approaches. It concludes with suggestions of basic requirements when studying MBIs and promising future directions to further strengthen evidence-based research on MBIs in connections with brain circuitry.
Pleasure in music has been linked to predictive coding of melodic and rhythmic patterns, subserve... more Pleasure in music has been linked to predictive coding of melodic and rhythmic patterns, subserved by connectivity between regions in the brain's auditory and reward networks. Specific musical anhedonics derive little pleasure from music and have altered auditory-reward connectivity, but no difficulties with music perception abilities and no generalized physical anhedonia. Recent research suggests that specific musical anhedonics experience pleasure in nonmusical sounds, suggesting that the implicated brain pathways may be specific to music reward. However, this work used sounds with clear real-world sources (e.g., babies laughing, crowds cheering), so positive hedonic responses could be based on the referents of these sounds rather than the sounds themselves. We presented specific musical anhedonics and matched controls with isolated short pleasing and displeasing synthesized sounds of varying timbres with no clear real-world referents. While the two groups found displeasing sounds equally displeasing, the musical anhedonics gave substantially lower pleasure ratings to the pleasing sounds, indicating that their sonic anhedonia is not limited to musical rhythms and melodies. Furthermore, across a large sample of participants, mean pleasure ratings for pleasing synthesized sounds predicted significant and similar variance in six dimensions of musical reward considered to be relatively independent, suggesting that pleasure in sonic timbres play a role in eliciting reward-related responses to music. We replicate the earlier findings of preserved pleasure ratings for semantically referential sounds in musical anhedonics and find that pleasure ratings of semantic referents, when presented without sounds, correlated with ratings for the sounds themselves. This association was stronger in musical anhedonics than in controls, suggesting the use of semantic knowledge as a compensatory mechanism for affective sound processing. Our results indicate that specific musical anhedonia is not entirely specific to melodic and rhythmic processing, and suggest that timbre merits further research as a source of pleasure in music.
The process of creativity entails the production of novel and original work that takes into accou... more The process of creativity entails the production of novel and original work that takes into account the domain, the field, and the creator (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). Here we report recent theoretical and empirical advances on jazz improvisation as a model for understanding the process of creativity. We propose a framework by which musicians can learn to become creative improvisers via simultaneous perceptual, cognitive, and social engagement. These learning processes translate to gaining active experience with musical structures (such as scales and chords), exposure to established works in the field, and ensemble improvisation with musical peers. Empirically we compare jazz musicians, classical musicians, and nonmusicians in a battery of psychophysical and EEG tasks. The psychophysical task (modified from Navarro Cebrian and Janata (2010)) entails perception and imagery of different musical scales, where participants’ task is to judge whether the final pitch is too high, too low, or in tune. Jazz musicians show higher accuracy and a steeper psychometric function, suggesting heightened sensitivity to mistuned pitches given a tonal context. The EEG task (modified from Koelsch, Gunter, Friederici, and Schroger (2000)) compares expected, slightly unexpected, and highly unexpected chord progressions while participants rate the pleasantness of each chord progression. Given this explicit judgment task we see that the P300, an ERP component known to reflect explicit awareness and target processing, is enlarged during unexpected tonal harmonies for jazz musicians, and furthermore its amplitude is positively correlated with the length of musical training. Taken together, our central theme is that the process of improvisation requires heightened awareness of, and sensitivity to, tonal possibilities within a musical context, which allow the individual to generate novel sequences that are acceptable but original within the domain of jazz music.
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