Sentence pitch change detection in the native and unfamiliar language in musicians and non-musicians: Behavioral, electrophysiological and psychoacoustic study

AbstractThe detection of pitch changes is crucial to sound localization, music appreciation and speech comprehension, yet the brain network oscillatory dynamics involved remain unclear. We used time-resolved cortical imaging in a pitch change detection task. Tone sequences were presented to both typical listeners and participants affected with congenital amusia, as a model of altered pitch change perception.Our data show that tone sequences entrained slow (2-4 Hz) oscillations in the auditory cortex and inferior frontal gyrus, at the pace of tone presentations. Inter-regional signaling at this slow pace was directed from auditory cortex towards the inferior frontal gyrus and motor cortex. Bursts of faster (15-35Hz) oscillations were also generated in these regions, with directed influence from the motor cortex. These faster components occurred precisely at the expected latencies of each tone in a sequence, yielding a form of local phase-amplitude coupling with slower concurrent activity. The intensity of this coupling peaked dynamically at the moment of anticipated pitch changes.We clarify the mechanistic relevance of these observations in relation to behavior as, by task design, typical listeners outperformed amusic participants. Compared to typical listeners, inter-regional slow signaling toward motor and inferior frontal cortices was depressed in amusia. Also, the auditory cortex of amusic participants over-expressed tonic, fast-slow phase-amplitude coupling, pointing at a possible misalignment between stimulus encoding and internal predictive signaling. Our study provides novel insight into the functional architecture of polyrhythmic brain activity in auditory perception and emphasizes active, network processes involving the motor system in sensory integration.

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Frequency specific impairment of automatic pitch change detection by fMRI acoustic noise: An MEG study

Journal of Neuroscience Methods ◽

10.1016/j.jneumeth.2006.01.030 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 155 (1) ◽

pp. 149-159 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

N. Novitski ◽

B. Maess ◽

M. Tervaniemi

Keyword(s):

Change Detection ◽

Acoustic Noise ◽

Pitch Change

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Pitch-change detection and pitch-direction discrimination in children.

Psychomusicology Music Mind and Brain ◽

10.1037/a0033301 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 73-81 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Amy Fancourt ◽

Frederic Dick ◽

Lauren Stewart

Keyword(s):

Change Detection ◽

Pitch Change ◽

Direction Discrimination ◽

Pitch Direction

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Rapid Assessment of Non-Verbal Auditory Perception in Normal-Hearing Participants and Cochlear Implant Users

Journal of Clinical Medicine ◽

10.3390/jcm10102093 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (10) ◽

pp. 2093

Author(s):

Agathe Pralus ◽

Ruben Hermann ◽

Fanny Cholvy ◽

Pierre-Emmanuel Aguera ◽

Annie Moulin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Change Detection ◽

Emotion Recognition ◽

Auditory Perception ◽

Visual Cues ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Rapid Assessment ◽

Normal Hearing ◽

Stream Segregation ◽

Pitch Change ◽

Small Pitch

In the case of hearing loss, cochlear implants (CI) allow for the restoration of hearing. Despite the advantages of CIs for speech perception, CI users still complain about their poor perception of their auditory environment. Aiming to assess non-verbal auditory perception in CI users, we developed five listening tests. These tests measure pitch change detection, pitch direction identification, pitch short-term memory, auditory stream segregation, and emotional prosody recognition, along with perceived intensity ratings. In order to test the potential benefit of visual cues for pitch processing, the three pitch tests included half of the trials with visual indications to perform the task. We tested 10 normal-hearing (NH) participants with material being presented as original and vocoded sounds, and 10 post-lingually deaf CI users. With the vocoded sounds, the NH participants had reduced scores for the detection of small pitch differences, and reduced emotion recognition and streaming abilities compared to the original sounds. Similarly, the CI users had deficits for small differences in the pitch change detection task and emotion recognition, as well as a decreased streaming capacity. Overall, this assessment allows for the rapid detection of specific patterns of non-verbal auditory perception deficits. The current findings also open new perspectives about how to enhance pitch perception capacities using visual cues.

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Change detection and schematic processing in music

Psychology of Music ◽

10.1177/0305735617751249 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 47 (2) ◽

pp. 173-193

Author(s):

Kat R. Agres

Keyword(s):

Change Detection ◽

Factorial Design ◽

Memory Representation ◽

Memory Encoding ◽

Tonal Structure ◽

Single Tone ◽

Pitch Change ◽

Schematic Processing ◽

Memory Representations ◽

Full Factorial

Research into vision has highlighted the importance of gist representations in change detection and memory. This article puts forth the hypothesis that schematic processing and gist provide an account for change detection in music as well, where a musical gist is an abstracted memory representation for schematically consistent tones. The present experiments illuminate the content of gist memory representations by testing when listeners can detect single-tone changes in pairs of melodies. In Experiment 1, musicians and non-musicians listened to melodies varying in tonal structure. Less structure resulted in compromised change detection in both groups. Most often, musicians displayed more accurate change detection than non-musicians, but, surprisingly, when schematic processing could not contribute to memory encoding, musicians performed worse than their untrained counterparts. Experiment 2 utilized a full-factorial design to examine tonality, interval of pitch change, metrical position, and rhythm. Tonality had a particularly large effect on performance, with non-scale tones generally aiding change detection. Listeners were unlikely, however, to detect schematically-inconsistent tones when only brief melodic context was available. The results uphold the hypothesis that memory for melodies relies on schematic processing, with change detection dependent upon whether the change alters the schematic gist of the melody.

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Vivid Imagers Are Better at Detecting Salient Changes

Journal of Individual Differences ◽

10.1027/1614-0001.27.4.218 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 27 (4) ◽

pp. 218-228 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Paul Rodway ◽

Karen Gillies ◽

Astrid Schepman

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Change Detection ◽

Visual Imagery ◽

Detection Task ◽

Level Of Detail ◽

Detection Accuracy ◽

Change Detection Task ◽

Term Change ◽

High Level

This study examined whether individual differences in the vividness of visual imagery influenced performance on a novel long-term change detection task. Participants were presented with a sequence of pictures, with each picture and its title displayed for 17 s, and then presented with changed or unchanged versions of those pictures and asked to detect whether the picture had been changed. Cuing the retrieval of the picture's image, by presenting the picture's title before the arrival of the changed picture, facilitated change detection accuracy. This suggests that the retrieval of the picture's representation immunizes it against overwriting by the arrival of the changed picture. The high and low vividness participants did not differ in overall levels of change detection accuracy. However, in replication of Gur and Hilgard (1975) , high vividness participants were significantly more accurate at detecting salient changes to pictures compared to low vividness participants. The results suggest that vivid images are not characterised by a high level of detail and that vivid imagery enhances memory for the salient aspects of a scene but not all of the details of a scene. Possible causes of this difference, and how they may lead to an understanding of individual differences in change detection, are considered.

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