Martin Nørgaard, Assistant Professor of Music Education at Georgia State University (GSU) - School of Music, Atlanta with students are visiting Center for Music in the Brain.

13.03.2018 | Hella Kastbjerg

1:00 Boris Kleber: Models of Predictive Coding in Vocal Production

Predictive coding models have their origin in perception, yet perception and action are closely coupled in the brain. In this presentation, I will focus on vocal production as an interesting example of how multisensory information is integrated throughout experience and practice for developing highly accurate forward models that subserve fluent speech or song production.

1:30 David Quiroga: Sharpening our predictions: A case for more complex and real-sounding stimuli in music-brain research

In this talk, I will discuss why and how to use more complex and real-sounding music stimuli in neuroscientific research. In particular, I will talk about musical expectations and their study through the mismatch negativity (MMN), a well-known brain response that indexes neural prediction error. I will show how MMN experimental paradigms are often very simple and repetitive and do not reflect the richness of daily life auditory perception. This is important because, in real situations, we often encounter musical stimuli with different stylistic and statistical properties, and different levels of familiarity and complexity, something that might substantially affect the neural responses to music. To illustrate the discussion, I will present data from a study in which we developed a more real sounding and complex MMN paradigm, which shed some light on how perception changes as a function of the complexity of the stimuli. I propose that not only musical expectations but also the precision of our expectations play a fundamental role in music perception, and that we, as scientist, need to sharpen our predictions and look closer into music as it happens in our everyday experience.

2:00 Leonardo Bonetti: Learning and remembering tunes: the role of memory and information content on neurophysiological brain activity

Memory is the faculty responsible for encoding, storing and retrieving information, and represents one of the most crucial abilities for surviving and acting within the environment. Even if it has been widely explored by the conduction of behavioural and neuroscientific research, there are no studies that clearly investigated the neural correlates of early memorization and retrieval of sound sequences. In this pilot study, we recorded the brain activity of 6 participants while performing a task of learning and recollection of musical sequences. We utilized the old/new (previously learned musical sequences vs new ones) paradigm implemented with 1.25 second sound sequences during a magnetoencephalographic recording. We revealed a higher slow negativity in both hemisphere peaking at 1 second after the onset of the excerpt for the old compared to the new stimuli. We also found a stronger activity in the anterior temporal region of the left hemisphere for the old excerpts characterized by a higher level of information content (IC), an objective measure of the predictability of each sound given a sequence of previous ones. The difference between the responses to the old and new musical sequences was particularly evident for the minor musical mode. Moreover, musicians exhibited a stronger difference between the two conditions than non-musicians. Although the small dimensions of our sample, we were already able to observe a relevant different brain activity to the old and new stimuli during the recognition phase.

2:30 Bjørn Petersen: “Wrap it in Rap” - Music Making with Adolescent CI Users

Whereas implant outcome in adult and pediatric CI users has been studied intensely, information concerning the new generation of prelingually hearing impaired adolescents, who have grown up with the assistance of CIs has so far been sparse. Recent studies, however, indicate that to keep pace with their normal hearing peers, supplementary measures of auditory rehabilitation are in demand throughout adolescence. Music training may provide a strong, motivational and beneficial method of strengthening not only music perception, but also linguistic skills, particularly the prosodic properties of speech. Since adolescence is an age when self-identify is forming and social relations, including music listening and preferences, are particularly important it is fair to assume that also young CI users will engage in musical activities – despite challenging preconditions. The purpose of this study was to examine 1) the potential effects of an intensive musical ear training program on the perception of music and speech in prelingually hearing impaired adolescent cochlear implant (CI) users and 2) these adolescents’ music listening habits and music enjoyment.