scholarly journals Neural entrainment to music is sensitive to melodic spectral complexity

2020 ◽  
Vol 123 (3) ◽  
pp. 1063-1071
Author(s):  
Indiana Wollman ◽  
Pablo Arias ◽  
Jean-Julien Aucouturier ◽  
Benjamin Morillon
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Auditory Information ◽  
Coupling Mechanism ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Human Participants

During auditory perception, neural oscillations are known to entrain to acoustic dynamics but their role in the processing of auditory information remains unclear. As a complex temporal structure that can be parameterized acoustically, music is particularly suited to address this issue. In a combined behavioral and EEG experiment in human participants, we investigated the relative contribution of temporal (acoustic dynamics) and nontemporal (melodic spectral complexity) dimensions of stimulation on neural entrainment, a stimulus-brain coupling phenomenon operationally defined here as the temporal coherence between acoustical and neural dynamics. We first highlight that low-frequency neural oscillations robustly entrain to complex acoustic temporal modulations, which underscores the fine-grained nature of this coupling mechanism. We also reveal that enhancing melodic spectral complexity, in terms of pitch, harmony, and pitch variation, increases neural entrainment. Importantly, this manipulation enhances activity in the theta (5 Hz) range, a frequency-selective effect independent of the note rate of the melodies, which may reflect internal temporal constraints of the neural processes involved. Moreover, while both emotional arousal ratings and neural entrainment were positively modulated by spectral complexity, no direct relationship between arousal and neural entrainment was observed. Overall, these results indicate that neural entrainment to music is sensitive to the spectral content of auditory information and indexes an auditory level of processing that should be distinguished from higher-order emotional processing stages. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Low-frequency (<10 Hz) cortical neural oscillations are known to entrain to acoustic dynamics, the so-called neural entrainment phenomenon, but their functional implication in the processing of auditory information remains unclear. In a behavioral and EEG experiment capitalizing on parameterized musical textures, we disentangle the contribution of stimulus dynamics, melodic spectral complexity, and emotional judgments on neural entrainment and highlight their respective spatial and spectral neural signature.

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 Persistent neural entrainment in the human cortex is frequency selective

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques Pesnot Lerousseau ◽  
Agnès Trébuchon ◽  
Benjamin Morillon ◽  
Daniele Schön
Keyword(s):  
Harmonic Oscillator ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Oscillatory Activity ◽  
Auditory Stimuli ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Human Cortex ◽  
Damped Harmonic Oscillator ◽  
High Gamma ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Frequency Selective

AbstractRhythmic stimulation, either sensory or electrical, aiming at entraining oscillatory activity to reveal or optimize brain functions, relies on a critically untested hypothesis: it should produce a persistent effect, outlasting the stimulus duration. We tested this assumption by studying cortical neural oscillations during and after presentation of rhythmic auditory stimuli. Using intracranial and surface recordings in humans, we reveal consistent neural response properties throughout the cortex, with persistent entrainment being selective to high-gamma oscillations. Critically, during passive perception, neural oscillations do not outlast low-frequency acoustic dynamics. We further show that our data are well-captured by a model of damped harmonic oscillator and can be classified into three classes of neural dynamics, with distinct damping properties and eigenfrequencies. This model thus provides a mechanistic and quantitative explanation of the frequency selectivity of persistent neural entrainment in the human cortex.Highlights- Neural oscillatory activity does not outlast low-frequency (2.5 Hz) acoustic dynamics during passive perception.- High-gamma activity is entrained by periodic auditory stimuli, with persistent activity up to 10 cycles after stimulus offset.- This frequency following response (FFR) is present throughout the cortex, up to inferior frontal and motor regions.- The frequency selective nature of neural entrainment is well-captured by a model of damped harmonic oscillator.

scholarly journals Low-frequency subthalamic neural oscillations are involved in explicit and implicit facial emotional processing - a local field potential study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thibaut Dondaine ◽  
Joan Duprez ◽  
Jean-François Houvenaghel ◽  
Julien Modolo ◽  
Claire Haegelen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Local Field ◽  
Local Field Potential ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Field Potential ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Trial Phase

AbstractIn addition to the subthalamic nucleus’ (STN) role in motricity, STN deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson’s disease (PD) has also uncovered its involvement in cognitive and limbic processing. STN neural oscillations analyzed through local field potential (LFP) recordings have been shown to contribute to emotional (mostly in the alpha band [8-12 Hz]) and cognitive processing (theta [4-7 Hz] and beta [13-30 Hz] bands). In this study, we aimed at testing the hypothesis that STN oscillatory activity is involved in explicit and implicit processing of emotions. We used a task that presented the patients with emotional facial expressions and manipulated the cognitive demand by either asking them to identify the emotion (explicit task) or the gender of the face (implicit task). We evaluated emotion and task effects on STN neural oscillations power and inter-trial phase consistency. Our results revealed that STN delta power was influenced by emotional valence, but only in the implicit task. Interestingly, the strongest results were found for inter-trial phase consistency: we found an increased consistency for delta oscillations in the implicit task as compared to the explicit task. Furthermore, increased delta and theta consistency were associated with better task performance. These low-frequency effects are similar to the oscillatory dynamics described during cognitive control. We suggest that these findings might reflect a greater need for cognitive control, although an effect of greatest task difficulty in the implicit situation could have influenced the results as well. Overall, our study suggests that low-frequency STN neural oscillations, especially their functional organization, are involved in explicit and implicit emotional processing.Highlights-STN LFPs were recorded during an emotional/gender recognition task in PD patients-STN delta power increase depended on emotional valence in the implicit task only-STN delta inter-trial phase consistency increase was greater for the implicit task-Delta/theta inter-trial phase consistency was associated with task accuracy-The STN is involved in the interaction between emotional and cognitive processing

scholarly journals Ultra-low frequency neural entrainment to pain

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y Guo ◽  
RJ Bufacchi ◽  
G Novembre ◽  
M Kilintari ◽  
M Moayedi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Frequency Entrainment ◽  
Statistical Regularities ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Nociceptive Input ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Periodic Inputs

AbstractNervous systems exploit regularities in the sensory environment to predict sensory input and adjust behavior, and thereby maximize fitness. Entrainment of neural oscillations allows retaining temporal regularities of sensory information, a prerequisite for prediction. Entrainment has been extensively described at the frequencies of periodic inputs most commonly present in visual and auditory landscapes (e.g. >1 Hz). An open question is whether neural entrainment also occurs for regularities at much longer timescales. Here we exploited the fact that the temporal dynamics of thermal stimuli in natural environment can unfold very slowly. We show that ultra-low frequency neural oscillations preserved a long-lasting trace of sensory information through neural entrainment to periodic thermo-nociceptive input as low as 0.1 Hz. Importantly, revealing the functional significance of this phenomenon, both power and phase of the entrainment predicted individual pain sensitivity. In contrast, periodic auditory input at the same ultra-low frequency did not entrain ultra-low frequency oscillations. These results demonstrate that a functionally-significant neural entrainment can occur at temporal scales far longer than those commonly explored. The non-supramodal nature of our results suggests that ultra-low frequency entrainment might be tuned to the temporal scale of the statistical regularities characteristic of different sensory modalities.

scholarly journals Strategic resources and smallholder performance at the bottom of the pyramid

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Olthaar ◽  
Wilfred Dolfsma ◽  
Clemens Lutz ◽  
Florian Noseleit
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Agricultural Economics ◽  
Local Market ◽  
Bottom Of The Pyramid ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Strategic Resources ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Resource Based Theory

In a competitive business environment at the Bottom of the Pyramid smallholders supplying global value chains may be thought to be at the whims of downstream large-scale players and local market forces, leaving no room for strategic entrepreneurial behavior. In such a context we test the relationship between the use of strategic resources and firm performance. We adopt the Resource Based Theory and show that seemingly homogenous smallholders deploy resources differently and, consequently, some do outperform others. We argue that the ‘resource-based theory’ results in a more fine-grained understanding of smallholder performance than approaches generally applied in agricultural economics. We develop a mixed-method approach that allows one to pinpoint relevant, industry-specific resources, and allows for empirical identification of the relative contribution of each resource to competitive advantage. The results show that proper use of quality labor, storage facilities, time of selling, and availability of animals are key capabilities.

scholarly journals Both ongoing alpha and visually induced gamma oscillations show reliable diversity in their across-site phase-relations

2015 ◽  
Vol 113 (5) ◽  
pp. 1556-1563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freek van Ede ◽  
Stan van Pelt ◽  
Pascal Fries ◽  
Eric Maris
Keyword(s):  
Phase Relation ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Gamma Oscillations ◽  
Phase Relations ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
High Signal ◽  
Noninvasive Methods ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Systems Neuroscience

Neural oscillations have emerged as one of the major electrophysiological phenomena investigated in cognitive and systems neuroscience. These oscillations are typically studied with regard to their amplitude, phase, and/or phase coupling. Here we demonstrate the existence of another property that is intrinsic to neural oscillations but has hitherto remained largely unexplored in cognitive and systems neuroscience. This pertains to the notion that these oscillations show reliable diversity in their phase-relations between neighboring recording sites (phase-relation diversity). In contrast to most previous work, we demonstrate that this diversity is restricted neither to low-frequency oscillations nor to periods outside of sensory stimulation. On the basis of magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings in humans, we show that this diversity is prominent not only for ongoing alpha oscillations (8–12 Hz) but also for gamma oscillations (50–70 Hz) that are induced by sustained visual stimulation. We further show that this diversity provides a dimension within electrophysiological data that, provided a sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio, does not covary with changes in amplitude. These observations place phase-relation diversity on the map as a prominent and general property of neural oscillations that, moreover, can be studied with noninvasive methods in healthy human volunteers. This opens important new avenues for investigating how neural oscillations contribute to the neural implementation of cognition and behavior.

scholarly journals Performance-based Social Comparisons in Humans and Long-tailed Macaques

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-350
Author(s):  
Stefanie Keupp ◽  
Farhan Abedin ◽  
Lena Jeanson ◽  
Carolin Kade ◽  
Josefine Kalbitz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Comparison ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Social Comparisons ◽  
Task Type ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Evolutionary Origins ◽  
Human Thinking ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Foraging Task

Social comparisons are a fundamental feature of human thinking and affect self-evaluations and task performance. Little is known about the evolutionary origins of social comparison processes, however. Previous studies that investigated performance-based social comparisons in nonhuman primates yielded mixed results. We report three experiments that aimed (a) to explore how the task type may contribute to performance in monkeys, and (b) how a competitive set-up affects monkeys compared to humans. In a co-action touchscreen task, monkeys were neither influenced by nor interested in the performance of the partner. This may indicate that the experimental set-up was not sufficiently relevant to trigger social comparisons. In a novel co-action foraging task, monkeys increased their feeding speed in competitive and co-active conditions, but not in relation to the degree of competition. In an analogue of the foraging task, human participants were affected by partner performance and experimental context, indicating that the task is suitable to elicit social comparisons in humans. Our studies indicate that specifics of task and experimental setting are relevant to draw the monkeys’ attention to a co-actor and that, in line with previous research, a competitive element was crucial. We highlight the need to explore what constitutes “relevant” social comparison situations for monkeys as well as nonhuman animals in general, and point out factors that we think are crucial in this respect (e.g., task type, physical closeness, and the species’ ecology). We discuss that early forms of social comparisons evolved in purely competitive environments with increasing social tolerance and cooperative motivations allowing for more fine-grained processing of social information. Competition driven effects on task performance might constitute the foundation for the more elaborate social comparison processes found in humans, which may involve context-dependent information processing and metacognitive monitoring.

scholarly journals Dissociable oscillatory networks support gain and loss processing in human orbitofrontal cortex

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Saez ◽  
Jack Lin ◽  
Edward Chang ◽  
Josef Parvizi ◽  
Robert T. Knight ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Orbitofrontal Cortex ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Reward Processing ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Beta Band ◽  
Neuronal Ensembles ◽  
Gain And Loss

AbstractHuman neuroimaging and animal studies have linked neural activity in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) to valuation of positive and negative outcomes. Additional evidence shows that neural oscillations, representing the coordinated activity of neuronal ensembles, support information processing in both animal and human prefrontal regions. However, the role of OFC neural oscillations in reward-processing in humans remains unknown, partly due to the difficulty of recording oscillatory neural activity from deep brain regions. Here, we examined the role of OFC neural oscillations (<30Hz) in reward processing by combining intracranial OFC recordings with a gambling task in which patients made economic decisions under uncertainty. Our results show that power in different oscillatory bands are associated with distinct components of reward evaluation. Specifically, we observed a double dissociation, with a selective theta band oscillation increase in response to monetary gains and a beta band increase in response to losses. These effects were interleaved across OFC in overlapping networks and were accompanied by increases in oscillatory coherence between OFC electrode sites in theta and beta band during gain and loss processing, respectively. These results provide evidence that gain and loss processing in human OFC are supported by distinct low-frequency oscillations in networks, and provide evidence that participating neuronal ensembles are organized functionally through oscillatory coherence, rather than local anatomical segregation.

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.

The Role of Low-frequency Neural Oscillations in Speech Processing: Revisiting Delta Entrainment

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 1205-1215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor J. Boucher ◽  
Annie C. Gilbert ◽  
Boutheina Jemel
Keyword(s):  
Speech Processing ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Phase Coherence ◽  
Theta Oscillations ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Low Frequency Oscillations ◽  
Temporal Grouping ◽  
Delta Oscillations

Studies that use measures of cerebro-acoustic coherence have shown that theta oscillations (3–10 Hz) entrain to syllable-size modulations in the energy envelope of speech. This entrainment creates sensory windows in processing acoustic cues. Recent reports submit that delta oscillations (<3 Hz) can be entrained by nonsensory content units like phrases and serve to process meaning—though such views face fundamental problems. Other studies suggest that delta underlies a sensory chunking linked to the processing of sequential attributes of speech sounds. This chunking associated with the “focus of attention” is commonly manifested by the temporal grouping of items in sequence recall. Similar grouping in speech may entrain delta. We investigate this view by examining how low-frequency oscillations entrain to three types of stimuli (tones, nonsense syllables, and utterances) having similar timing, pitch, and energy contours. Entrainment was indexed by “intertrial phase coherence” in the EEGs of 18 listeners. The results show that theta oscillations at central sites entrain to syllable-size elements in speech and tones. However, delta oscillations at frontotemporal sites specifically entrain to temporal groups in both meaningful utterances and meaningless syllables, which indicates that delta may support but does not directly bear on a processing of content. The findings overall suggest that, although theta entrainment relates to a processing of acoustic attributes, delta entrainment links to a sensory chunking that relates to a processing of properties of articulated sounds. The results also show that measures of intertrial phase coherence can be better suited than cerebro-acoustic coherence in revealing delta entrainment.

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