scholarly journals Neural entrainment facilitates duplets: Frequency-tagging differentiates musicians and non-musicians when they tap to the beat

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Celma-Miralles ◽  
B.A. Kleber ◽  
J.M. Toro ◽  
P. Vuust
Keyword(s):  
Motor Coordination ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Beat Frequency ◽  
Sensorimotor Synchronization ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
List Type ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Inherent Property ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Subdivision Level

ABSTRACTMotor coordination to an isochronous beat improves when it is subdivided into equal intervals. Here, we study if this subdivision benefit (i) varies with the kind of subdivision, (ii) is enhanced in individuals with formal musical training, and (iii), is an inherent property of neural oscillations. We recorded electroencephalograms of musicians and non-musicians during: (a) listening to an isochronous beat, (b) listening to one of 4 different subdivisions, (c) listening to the beat again, and (d) listening and tapping the beat with the same subdivisions as in (b). We found that tapping consistency and neural entrainment in condition (d) was enhanced in non-musicians for duplets (1:2) compared to the other types of subdivisions. Musicians showed overall better tapping performance and were equally good at tapping together with duplets, triplets (1:3) and quadruplets (1:4), but not with quintuplets (1:5). This group difference was reflected in enhanced neural responses in the triplet and quadruplet conditions. Importantly, for all participants, the neural entrainment to the beat and its first harmonic (i.e. the duplet frequency) increased after listening to each of the subdivisions (c compared to a). Since these subdivisions are harmonics of the beat frequency, the observed preference of the brain to enhance the simplest subdivision level (duplets) may be an inherent property of neural oscillations. In sum, a tapping advantage for simple binary subdivisions is reflected in neural oscillations to harmonics of the beat, and formal training in music can enhance it.Highlights-The neural entrainment to periodic sounds only differs between musicians and non-musicians when they perform a predictive sensorimotor synchronization task.-After listening to a subdivided beat, the frequencies related to the beat and its first harmonic are enhanced in the EEG, likely stabilizing the perception of the beat.-There is a natural advantage for binary structures in sensorimotor synchronization, observed in the tapping of duplets by non-musicians, which can be extended to other subdivisions after extensive musical training.

scholarly journals Neural Entrainment to the Rhythmic Structure of Music

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 400-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Tierney ◽  
Nina Kraus
Keyword(s):  
Beat Frequency ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Neural Response ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Resonance Theory ◽  
Rhythmic Structure ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Abstract Stimuli

The neural resonance theory of musical meter explains musical beat tracking as the result of entrainment of neural oscillations to the beat frequency and its higher harmonics. This theory has gained empirical support from experiments using simple, abstract stimuli. However, to date there has been no empirical evidence for a role of neural entrainment in the perception of the beat of ecologically valid music. Here we presented participants with a single pop song with a superimposed bassoon sound. This stimulus was either lined up with the beat of the music or shifted away from the beat by 25% of the average interbeat interval. Both conditions elicited a neural response at the beat frequency. However, although the on-the-beat condition elicited a clear response at the first harmonic of the beat, this frequency was absent in the neural response to the off-the-beat condition. These results support a role for neural entrainment in tracking the metrical structure of real music and show that neural meter tracking can be disrupted by the presentation of contradictory rhythmic cues.

Neural Entrainment in Drum Rhythms with Silent Breaks: Evidence from Steady-state Evoked and Event-related Potentials

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (12) ◽  
pp. 1865-1877 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Stupacher ◽  
Matthias Witte ◽  
Michael J. Hove ◽  
Guilherme Wood
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Music Perception ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Stimulus Presentation ◽  
Oscillatory Activity ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Large Network ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Neural Entrainment

The fusion of rhythm, beat perception, and movement is often summarized under the term “entrainment” and becomes obvious when we effortlessly tap our feet or snap our fingers to the pulse of music. Entrainment to music involves a large network of brain structures, and neural oscillations at beat-related frequencies can help elucidate how this network is connected. Here, we used EEG to investigate steady-state evoked potentials (SSEPs) and event-related potentials (ERPs) during listening and tapping to drum clips with different rhythmic structures that were interrupted by silent breaks of 2–6 sec. This design allowed us to address the question of whether neural entrainment processes persist after the physical presence of musical rhythms and to link neural oscillations and event-related neural responses. During stimulus presentation, SSEPs were elicited in both tasks (listening and tapping). During silent breaks, SSEPs were only present in the tapping task. Notably, the amplitude of the N1 ERP component was more negative after longer silent breaks, and both N1 and SSEP results indicate that neural entrainment was increased when listening to drum rhythms compared with an isochronous metronome. Taken together, this suggests that neural entrainment to music is not solely driven by the physical input but involves endogenous timing processes. Our findings break ground for a tighter linkage between steady-state and transient evoked neural responses in rhythm processing. Beyond music perception, they further support the crucial role of entrained oscillatory activity in shaping sensory, motor, and cognitive processes in general.

scholarly journals Cortical entrainment to music and its modulation by expertise

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (45) ◽  
pp. E6233-E6242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith B. Doelling ◽  
David Poeppel
Keyword(s):  
Music Perception ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Oscillatory Activity ◽  
Cortical Oscillations ◽  
Bidirectional Relationship ◽  
Delta Activity ◽  
Tightly Coupled ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Cortical Entrainment

Recent studies establish that cortical oscillations track naturalistic speech in a remarkably faithful way. Here, we test whether such neural activity, particularly low-frequency (<8 Hz; delta–theta) oscillations, similarly entrain to music and whether experience modifies such a cortical phenomenon. Music of varying tempi was used to test entrainment at different rates. In three magnetoencephalography experiments, we recorded from nonmusicians, as well as musicians with varying years of experience. Recordings from nonmusicians demonstrate cortical entrainment that tracks musical stimuli over a typical range of tempi, but not at tempi below 1 note per second. Importantly, the observed entrainment correlates with performance on a concurrent pitch-related behavioral task. In contrast, the data from musicians show that entrainment is enhanced by years of musical training, at all presented tempi. This suggests a bidirectional relationship between behavior and cortical entrainment, a phenomenon that has not previously been reported. Additional analyses focus on responses in the beta range (∼15–30 Hz)—often linked to delta activity in the context of temporal predictions. Our findings provide evidence that the role of beta in temporal predictions scales to the complex hierarchical rhythms in natural music and enhances processing of musical content. This study builds on important findings on brainstem plasticity and represents a compelling demonstration that cortical neural entrainment is tightly coupled to both musical training and task performance, further supporting a role for cortical oscillatory activity in music perception and cognition.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of early sound encoding and their relationship to speech in noise perception

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily B.J. Coffey ◽  
Alexander M.P. Chepesiuk ◽  
Sibylle C. Herholz ◽  
Sylvain Baillet ◽  
Robert J. Zatorre
Keyword(s):  
Auditory System ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
List Type ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Feed Forward ◽  
Frequency Following Response ◽  
Language Functions ◽  
Speech In Noise ◽  
Complementary Role

AbstractSpeech-in-noise (SIN) perception is a complex cognitive skill that affects social, vocational, and educational activities. Poor SIN ability particularly affects young and elderly populations, yet varies considerably even among healthy young adults with normal hearing. Although SIN skills are known to be influenced by top-down processes that can selectively enhance lower-level sound representations, the complementary role and of feed-forward mechanisms and their relationship to musical training is poorly understood. Using a paradigm that eliminates the main top-down factors that have been implicated in SIN performance, we aimed to better understand how robust encoding of periodicity in the auditory system (as measured by the frequency-following response) contributes to SIN perception. Using magnetoencephalograpy, we found that the strength of encoding at the fundamental frequency in the brainstem, thalamus, and cortex is correlated with SIN accuracy, as was the amplitude of the slower cortical P2 wave, and these enhancements were related to the extent and timing of musicianship. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that basic feed-forward sound encoding affects SIN perception by providing better information to later processing stages, and that modifying this process may be one mechanism through which musical training might enhance the auditory networks that subserve both musical and language functions.Highlights–Enhancements in periodic sound encoding are correlated with speech-in-noise ability–This effect is observed in the absence of contextual cues and task demands–Better encoding is observed throughout the auditory system and is right-lateralized–Stronger encoding is related to stronger subsequent secondary auditory cortex activity–Musicianship is related to both speech-in-noise perception and enhanced MEG signals

scholarly journals A silent disco: Persistent entrainment of low-frequency neural oscillations underlies beat-based, but not memory-based temporal expectations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fleur L. Bouwer ◽  
Johannes J. Fahrenfort ◽  
Samantha K. Millard ◽  
Heleen A. Slagter
Keyword(s):  
Neuronal Activity ◽  
Beat Frequency ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Expected Time ◽  
Low Frequency Oscillations ◽  
Eeg Data ◽  
Predictable Pattern ◽  
Temporal Intervals ◽  
Multivariate Pattern

AbstractTemporal expectations (e.g., predicting “when”) facilitate sensory processing, and are suggested to rely on entrainment of low frequency neural oscillations to regular rhythmic input. However, temporal expectations can be formed not only in response to a regular beat, such as in music (“beat-based” expectations), but also based on a predictable pattern of temporal intervals of different durations (“memory-based” expectations). Here, we examined the neural mechanisms underlying beat-based and memory-based expectations, by assessing EEG activity and behavioral responses during silent periods following rhythmic auditory sequences that allowed for beat-based or memory-based expectations, or had random timing. In Experiment 1 (N = 32), participants rated how well probe tones at various time points fitted the previous rhythm. Beat-based expectations affected fitness ratings for at least two beat-cycles, while the effects of memory-based expectations subsided after the first expected time point in the silence window. In Experiment 2 (N = 27), using EEG, we found a CNV following the final tones of memory-based and random, but not beat-based sequences, suggesting that climbing neuronal activity may specifically reflect memory-based expectations. Moreover, we found enhanced power in the EEG signal at the beat frequency for beat-based sequences both during listening and the silence. For memory-based sequences, we found enhanced power at a frequency inherent to the memory-based pattern only during listening, but not during the silence, suggesting that ongoing entrainment of low frequency oscillations may be specific to beat-based expectations. Finally, using multivariate pattern decoding on the raw EEG data, we could classify above chance from the silence which type of sequence participants had heard before. Together, our results suggest that beat-based and memory-based expectations rely on entrainment and climbing neuronal activity, respectively.

scholarly journals Neural entrainment determines the words we hear

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Kösem ◽  
Hans Rutger Bosker ◽  
Atsuko Takashima ◽  
Antje Meyer ◽  
Ole Jensen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Speech Processing ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Acoustic Signals ◽  
Speech Analysis ◽  
Neural Dynamics ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Perceived Duration

ABSTRACTLow-frequency neural entrainment to rhythmic input has been hypothesized as a canonical mechanism that shapes sensory perception in time. Neural entrainment is deemed particularly relevant for speech analysis, as it would contribute to the extraction of discrete linguistic elements from continuous acoustic signals. Yet, its causal influence in speech perception has been difficult to establish. Here, we provide evidence that oscillations build temporal predictions about the duration of speech tokens that directly influence perception. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we studied neural dynamics during listening to sentences that changed in speech rate. We observed neural entrainment to preceding speech rhythms persisting for several cycles after the change in rate. The sustained entrainment was associated with changes in the perceived duration of the last word’s vowel, resulting in the perception of words with radically different meanings. These findings support oscillatory models of speech processing, suggesting that neural oscillations actively shape speech perception.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of acoustic dissonance in music: The role of musicianship, schematic and veridical expectations

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0260728
Author(s):  
Carlota Pagès-Portabella ◽  
Mila Bertolo ◽  
Juan M. Toro
Keyword(s):  
Musical Training ◽  
Time Windows ◽  
Early Time ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Integration Mechanisms

In western music, harmonic expectations can be fulfilled or broken by unexpected chords. Musical irregularities in the absence of auditory deviance elicit well-studied neural responses (e.g. ERAN, P3, N5). These responses are sensitive to schematic expectations (induced by syntactic rules of chord succession) and veridical expectations about predictability (induced by experimental regularities). However, the cognitive and sensory contributions to these responses and their plasticity as a result of musical training remains under debate. In the present study, we explored whether the neural processing of pure acoustic violations is affected by schematic and veridical expectations. Moreover, we investigated whether these two factors interact with long-term musical training. In Experiment 1, we registered the ERPs elicited by dissonant clusters placed either at the middle or the ending position of chord cadences. In Experiment 2, we presented to the listeners with a high proportion of cadences ending in a dissonant chord. In both experiments, we compared the ERPs of musicians and non-musicians. Dissonant clusters elicited distinctive neural responses (an early negativity, the P3 and the N5). While the EN was not affected by syntactic rules, the P3a and P3b were larger for dissonant closures than for middle dissonant chords. Interestingly, these components were larger in musicians than in non-musicians, while the N5 was the opposite. Finally, the predictability of dissonant closures in our experiment did not modulate any of the ERPs. Our study suggests that, at early time windows, dissonance is processed based on acoustic deviance independently of syntactic rules. However, at longer latencies, listeners may be able to engage integration mechanisms and further processes of attentional and structural analysis dependent on musical hierarchies, which are enhanced in musicians.

scholarly journals The dynamics of spawning acts by a semelparous fish and its associated energetic costs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cédric Tentelier ◽  
Colin Bouchard ◽  
Anaïs Bernardin ◽  
Amandine Tauzin ◽  
Jean-Christophe Aymes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Expenditure ◽  
Beat Frequency ◽  
Vertical Plane ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
List Type ◽  
Night Time ◽  
Allis Shad ◽  
Alosa Alosa ◽  
Axial Acceleration ◽  
In The Wild

AbstractDuring the reproductive season, animals have to manage both their energetic budget and gamete stock. In particular, for semelparous capital breeders with determinate fecundity and no parental care other than gametic investment, the depletion of energetic stock must match the depletion of gametic stock, so that individuals get exhausted just after their last egg is laid and fertilized. Although these budgets are managed continuously, monitoring the dynamics of mating acts and energy expenditure at a fine temporal scale in the wild is challenging.This study aimed to quantify the individual dynamics of spawning acts and the concomitant energy expenditure of female Allis shad (Alosa alosa) throughout their mating season.Using eight individual-borne accelerometers for one month, we collected tri-axial acceleration, temperature, and pressure data that we analysed to i) detect the timing of spawning acts, ii) estimate energy expenditure from tail beat frequency and water temperature, and iii) monitor changes in body roundness from the position of the dorsally-mounted tag relative to the vertical plane.Female shad had a higher probability to spawn during warmer nights, and their spawning acts were synchronized (both individually and inter-individually) within each active night. They experienced warmer temperature, remained deeper, swan more slowly and spent less energy during daytime than night time. Over one month of spawning, they performed on average 15.75 spawning acts, spent on average 6 277 kJ and died with a significant portion of residual oocytes. The acceleration-based indicator of body roundness was correlated to condition coefficient measured at capture, and globally decreased through the spawning season, although the indicator was noisy and was not correlated to changes in estimated energy expenditure.Despite significant individual variability, our results indicate that female shad exhausted their energetic stock faster than their egg stock. Water warming will increase the rate of energy expenditure, which might increase the risk that shad die with a large stock of unspent eggs. Although perfectible, the three complementary analyses of acceleration data are promising for in situ monitoring of energy expenditure related to specific behaviour.

scholarly journals Sustained neural rhythms reveal endogenous oscillations supporting speech perception

PLoS Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. e3001142
Author(s):  
Sander van Bree ◽  
Ediz Sohoglu ◽  
Matthew H. Davis ◽  
Benedikt Zoefel
Keyword(s):  
Electrical Stimulation ◽  
Speech Perception ◽  
Oscillatory Activity ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Evoked Responses ◽  
Sustained Effects ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Underlying Principle ◽  
Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation ◽  
Neural Entrainment

Rhythmic sensory or electrical stimulation will produce rhythmic brain responses. These rhythmic responses are often interpreted as endogenous neural oscillations aligned (or “entrained”) to the stimulus rhythm. However, stimulus-aligned brain responses can also be explained as a sequence of evoked responses, which only appear regular due to the rhythmicity of the stimulus, without necessarily involving underlying neural oscillations. To distinguish evoked responses from true oscillatory activity, we tested whether rhythmic stimulation produces oscillatory responses which continue after the end of the stimulus. Such sustained effects provide evidence for true involvement of neural oscillations. In Experiment 1, we found that rhythmic intelligible, but not unintelligible speech produces oscillatory responses in magnetoencephalography (MEG) which outlast the stimulus at parietal sensors. In Experiment 2, we found that transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) leads to rhythmic fluctuations in speech perception outcomes after the end of electrical stimulation. We further report that the phase relation between electroencephalography (EEG) responses and rhythmic intelligible speech can predict the tACS phase that leads to most accurate speech perception. Together, we provide fundamental results for several lines of research—including neural entrainment and tACS—and reveal endogenous neural oscillations as a key underlying principle for speech perception.

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