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We outline a theory of tonality that predicts tonal stability, attraction, and categorization based on the principles of nonlinear resonance. Perception of tonality is the natural consequence of neural resonance, arising from central auditory nonlinearities.
The representation of consonant and dissonant chords in the auditory cortex was investigated using low-noise functional magnetic resonance imaging and different experimental paradigms to separate the effects of vertical harmony from those of other musical features. The results revealed higher activation by consonant compared with dissonant chords in the left posterior auditory cortex, suggesting contributions of mechanisms of encoding the acoustical chord structure rather than mechanisms based on sequential integration of chords.
The sounds of music play with many perceptual dimensions. We devised a set of psychophysical procedures to better understand how recipients of cochlear implants perceive basic sound attributes involved in music listening.
The aim of this experiment was to determine whether eight weeks of musical training based on pitch processing could help eight-year-old children detect pitch changes in language. Results show that a relatively short exposure (eight weeks) to pitch processing in music exerts some influence on pitch processing in language. Therefore, these results are in line with the hypothesis that common processes may underlie pitch processing in language and in music.
Through stimulus-response compatibility we tested whether sound frequency (pitch height) elicits a mental spatial representation. Musically untrained and, mostly, trained participants were shown a stimulus-response compatibility effect (Spatial-Musical Association of Response Codes or SMARC effect). When response alternatives were either vertically or horizontally aligned, performance was better when the lower (or leftward) button had to be pressed in response to a low sound and the upper (or rightward) button had to be pressed in response to a high sound, even when pitch height was irrelevant to the task.
The most prominent pitch of tinnitus was measured in 10 subjects with sensorineural tinnitus. The pitch was determined with three different psychophysical procedures in the ear ipsilateral to the tinnitus; an Adaptive Method (Bracketing), a Method of Limits (ascending and descending), and the Method of Adjustment. Each procedure involved equating the pitch of a pure tone to the most prominent tinnitus pitch, and was repeated seven times on each subject. Although there was no statistically significant difference for the means and standard deviations among the different methods for the group data, there were some large differences in a few individuals. Many of the subjects produced pitch matches that covered a range of 1 octave, whereas others showed better consistency. The Method of Limits took longer to perform and resulted in more octave confusions than the other two methods. The Adaptive Method was also repeated five times for each subject in the ear contralateral to the tinnitus. Two subjects produced a tinnitus pitch match that was over 1/2 octave lower in the contralateral ear. We recommend that tinnitus pitch be measured in the ipsilateral ear with either the Method of Adjustment or the Adaptive Method. Because some patients are unreliable in their pitch matching we suggest repeating the match seven to nine times.
Three-day-old babies were presented with synthetic speech stimuli and some no-sound trials. Three factors of the speech stimuli were examined: vowel quality change, pitch (F0) change, and stimulus presentation rate. The motor behaviour of the neonates was assessed using a multi-response observation method. The babies responded more when the vowel quality changed than when it did not. In some conditions, pitch variation and stimulus presentation rate also affected d'. The work extends previous findings on newborn auditory sensitivity showing differential responding to steady state vowels and that alterations in F0 can affect behaviour. The method has advantages in permitting several stimuli to be compared as well as studying neonates in states of arousal typical of perinatal experience.
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ASSR is a promising tool for the objective frequency-specific assessment of hearing thresholds in children. The stimulus generally used for ASSR recording (single amplitude-modulated carrier) only activates a small area on the basilar membrane. Therefore, the response amplitude is low. A stimulus with a broader frequency spectrum can be composed by adding several cosines whose frequency intervals comply with the desired stimulus repetition rate. Compensation of the travelling wave delay on the basilar membrane is possible with a stimulus of this type. Through this, a better synchronization of the neural response can be obtained and, as a result, higher response amplitudes can be expected, particularly for low-frequency stimuli. The additional introduction of a frequency offset enables the use of a q-sample test for the response detection, especially important at 500 Hz. The results of investigations carried out on a large group of normally hearing test subjects have confirmed the efficiency of this stimulus design. The new stimuli lead to significantly improved ASSRs with higher SNRs and thus higher detection rates and shorter detection times.
This experiment was attempted to investigate the strategies of pitch coding in melody processing. Twenty-six musically trained and twenty-six musically naive subjects were instructed to make recognition for melodies after a 12-s retention interval, during which four conditions of interference (i.e. pause, interfering melody, nonsense syllables, musical note names) were interpolated. Both the standard and comparison melodies were 6-tone sequences which composed of high-tonality structure or low-tonality structure. It was found that the recognition of musicians was severely disrupted by the "note names" under a tonal melody, while it was disrupted by "interfering melody" under an atonal melody. On the other hand, the recognition of non-musicians was significantly worse than musicians, and there were no significant differences in disruptive effects between the interferences. These findings suggest that musicians could used verbal (note names) coding strategy for tonal melody and sensory pitch coding strategies (ex. humming, whistling) for atonal melody, but that non-musicians could not use any effective strategies for melody coding. Results were also discussed in relation to contour and pitch of melodies.
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The present experiments assessed the contribution of tone height, melodic contour, and tone chroma to melody recognition. Rather than using highly familiar folk songs as in earlier studies, subjects were taught new melodies. Novel melodies were used to (a) more precisely control potential cues (e.g., rhythm) that are not of present interest, (b) eliminate unison intervals that cannot be transformed appropriately, (c) provide a direct analysis of the nature of confusion errors, (d) test whether recently learned melodies are recognized differently than highly overlearned melodies, and (e) evaluate the extent to which practice in the experimental task alters the process of recognition. The results replicate previous studies using familiar folk songs. Transformations of the original melodies were accurately recognized when tone height was violated, but both melodic contour and tone chroma were maintained. Violating both tone height and contour while maintaining chroma produced extremely poor recognition. Performance was intermediate when just melodic contour was preserved. There is now good evidence to support the idea that melodic contour and tone chroma, in addition to tone height, contribute to recognition of both highly familiar and recently learned melodies.
Timing is essential to the execution of skilled movements, yet our knowledge of the neural systems underlying timekeeping operations is limited. Using whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging, subjects were imaged while tapping with their right index finger in synchrony with tones that were separated by constant intervals [Synchronization (S)], followed by tapping without the benefit of an auditory cue [Continuation (C)]. Two control conditions followed in which subjects listened to tones and then made pitch discriminations (D). Both the S and the C conditions produced equivalent activation within the left sensorimotor cortex, the right cerebellum (dorsal dentate nucleus), and the right superior temporal gyrus (STG). Only the C condition produced activation of a medial premotor system, including the caudal supplementary motor area (SMA), the left putamen, and the left ventrolateral thalamus. The C condition also activated a region within the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), which is functionally interconnected with auditory cortex. Both control conditions produced bilateral activation of the STG, and the D condition also activated the rostral SMA. These results suggest that the internal generation of precisely timed movements is dependent on three interrelated neural systems, one that is involved in explicit timing (putamen, ventrolateral thalamus, SMA), one that mediates auditory sensory memory (IFG, STG), and another that is involved in sensorimotor processing (dorsal dentate nucleus, sensorimotor cortex).
The acoustic frequency ranges in birdsongs provide important absolute pitch cues for the recognition of conspecifics. Black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus), mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli), and zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) were trained to sort tones contiguous in frequency into 8 ranges on the basis of associations between response to the tones in each range and reward. All 3 species acquired accurate frequency-range discriminations, but zebra finches acquired the discrimination in fewer trials and to a higher standard than black-capped or mountain chickadees, which did not differ appreciably in the discrimination. Chickadees' relatively poorer accuracy was traced to poorer discrimination of tones in the higher frequency ranges. During transfer tests, the discrimination generalized to novel tones when the training tones were included, but not when they were omitted.
These experiments address the following issues. (1) When two complex tones contain different harmonics, do the differences in timbre between them impair the ability to discriminate the pitches of the tones? (2) When two complex tones have only a single component in common, and that component is the most discriminable component in each tone, is the frequency discrimination of the component affected by differences in residue pitch between the two tones? (3) How good is the pitch discrimination of complex tones with no common components when each tone contains multiple harmonics, so as to avoid ambiguity of pitch? (4) Is the pitch discrimination of complex tones with common harmonics impaired by shifting the component frequencies to nonharmonic values? In all experiments, frequency difference limens (DLCs) were measured for multiple-component complex tones, using an adaptive two-interval, two-alternative, forced-choice task. Three highly trained subjects were used. The main conclusions are as follows. (1) When two tones have the first six harmonics in common, DLCs are larger when the upper harmonics are different than when the upper harmonics are in common or are absent. It appears that differences in timbre impair DLCs. (2) Discrimination of the frequency of a single common partial in two complex tones is worse when the two tones have different residue pitches than when they have the same residue pitch. (3) DLCs for complex tones with no common harmonics are generally larger than those for complex tones with common harmonics. For the former, large individual differences occur, probably because subjects are affected differently by differences in timbre. (4) DLCs for harmonic complex tones are smaller than DLCs for complex tones in which the components are mistuned from harmonic values. This can probably be attributed to the less distinct residue pitch of the inharmonic complexes, rather than to reduced discriminability of partials. Overall, the results support the idea that DLCs for complex tones with common harmonics depend on residue pitch comparisons, rather than on comparisons of the pitches of partials.
Pitch changes that occur in speech and melodies can be described in terms of contour patterns of rises and falls in pitch and the actual pitches at each point in time. This study investigates whether training can improve the perception of these different features. One group of ten adults trained on a pitch-contour discrimination task, a second group trained on an actual-pitch discrimination task, and a third group trained on a contour comparison task between pitch sequences and their visual analogs. A fourth group did not undergo training. It was found that training on pitch sequence comparison tasks gave rise to improvements in pitch-contour perception. This occurred irrespective of whether the training task required the discrimination of contour patterns or the actual pitch details. In contrast, none of the training tasks were found to improve the perception of the actual pitches in a sequence. The results support psychological models of pitch processing where contour processing is an initial step before actual pitch details are analyzed. Further studies are required to determine whether pitch-contour training is effective in improving speech and melody perception.
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