music and the brain Flashcards
properties of music
universal
unique
- not just humans sing but bird sing for specific contexts
function of music
- attract mate
- bring people together
- precursor of language
- auditory cheesecake - by-product of human language -love it but not needed
- sparked imagination - evolutionary advantage
outer ear
pinna - important for detecting where sounds come from
ear canal - amplifies certain frequencies
tympanic membrane
airbourne frequencies cause it to vibrate
middle ear
vibration of 3 little bones (ossicles) convert airbourne vibrations to liquid-bourne vibrations
inner ear
cochlea - filled with liquid + liquid vibrates and picked up by auditory nerve and sent to CNS
4/5 synapses signal from ear makes
- hindbrain
- medulla
- central cochlea nucleus
- superior olivary complex
- inferior colliculus
- thalamus
- medial geniculate nucleus
- primary auditory cortex
organisation of auditory cortex and auditory nerve
tonotopic map
certain areas for certain frequencies
primary and secondary auditory cortex locations
primary = Heschl's gyrus secondary = planum polare and planum temporale
regions sensitive to spatial properties of sound
right primary auditory cortex
- speech also activates
association cortex
memory and associations
prefrontal regions
emotional responses
BA47 and BA44 - expectations
cerebellum
fine movement - playing instrument
emotional responses
amygdala
emotional response
nucleus accumbens
reward system - pleasure from music
hippocampus
memorising music
visual cortex
reading music
timbre
how different instruments sound
contour
going up or down
brain organises:
pitch, tempo, loudness, rhythm, spatial location, timbre and contour to:
higher level concepts
- meter, harmony, melody
evidence for being born musical
infants:
- preference for consonance music
- easily notice contours
- understand phrase structure in mozart
- can distinguish rhythms at 3 days old
- hemisphere specialisation
hemisphere specialisation in infant music
traditional music - activates primary auditory cortex
altered music - activates left inferior frontal gyrus - important for expectations
music development - new borns
percieve and remember - pitch sequences - tonality - consonant dissonant music preference for consonant
music development - 4-6YO
respond more to tonal than atonal
best age to start musical training
music development - 7 YO
sensitive to rules of harmony
music development - 10 YO
understand finer aspects of key structure
music development - 12 YO
development tastes and recognition of styles
mozart effect
- claims people perform better on tests of spatial abilities after listening to music composed by Mozart
(many pregnant women listen to make babies smarter) - Thomson Forde et al (2001)
– paper cutting and folding task to mozart or adagio (sad music)
– better when listen to music
– when controlled for arousal and mood - found was an artefact of this
music and language share what attributes
- both auditory forms of communication
- sensory input evolved over time and in a coherent manner
shared syntactic integration resource hypothesis (SSIRH)
Patel (2003)
syntax in music and language share common set of circuits in frontal brain region
syntactic overlap
by comparing violations in language and music
- syntax violation = P600
- semantic violation = P400
overlap between them at 600ms for frontal and parietal electrodes
- suggest share resources for processing grammar
music to study emotional prosody
Forde et al (2012)
amusic Ps tested their sensitivity to emotion in speech prosody
neutral sentence presented in different emotions
amusics = significantly impaired for all emotions except fear (uses different cues - evolution)
shows music and language share mechanisms that trigger emotional response
congenital amusia
lifelong condition difficulty perceiving or making sense of music difficulty in pitch perception tone deaf affects 4% population below 22 score in amusic range normal range for rhythm unaware when music/including self = off key difficulty discriminating music without lyrics dislike music + avoid it unlikely to experience reactions to it no spatial difficulties
why is amusia interesting
- sheds light on normal musical processing
- can determine how much musical processing is associated with other skills
- possible origins of other development disorders e.g., dyslexia, prosopagnosia, dyscalculia (numbers)
amusic pitch perception problems
Peretz et al (2001)
- Monica
- amusic
- small pitch difference = 0% accurate
- bigger pitch difference = 70% accurate
- better when going up
- not WM problem as recognise notes going up
amusic speech problems
only with subtle changes 65% languages = tonal Liu et al (2010) - statement-Q discrimination task - impaired in natural, gliding and nonsense speech
brain difference in amusia
amusics =
- thinner white matter between right frontal and temporal lobes and in right inferior frontal lobe (gets thinner the more severe)
- increased gray matter in auditory cortex (may compromise normal development of right frontotemporal pathway)
- impaired arculate fasciculus (tracts connecting superior and inferior temporal gyrus - info can’t be transmitted normal way)
amusic ERPs
no P600 - prominent in controls when semitone violation
N200 - controls and amusics - important in quater tones yet amusics impaired - so maybe can track but not report?
music and emotion
music can elicit psychological (mood) and physiological (chills) changes
reward-motivational circuits in music induced emotion
^ in basal forebrain, midbrain, orbitofrontal regions
deactivations in amygdala
PET study
- deactivations in ventral prefrontal area and amygdala
- amygdala = usually processing negative - this was positive, before chill - anticipation (seen in addicts before rush)
fMRI study
- reward system active - chills - dopamine production
- instrumental activated survival regions
rhythm = uniquely human
- anticipatory (tap before beat)
- flexible (can double/half clap)
- robust
- cross modal
- when asked to tap to flash - awful
beat can be a useful therapy for…
parkinsons disease
helps them walk
brain regions in tapping
Grahn and Brett (2007)
- regular, jazz and irregular
regular = easiest
as listening =
- bilateral superior temporal gyrus
- primary auditory cortex
as tapping =
- motor areas
- dorsal motor area
- SMA
- pre-SMA
- basal ganglia (time perception/movement)
can parrots keep the beat
yes
both humans and parrots have vocal learning - important for sequence mapping
why we move to the beat
basal ganglia - involved in timing beats
evolutionary modification for beat perception as chimps can’t move to beat
auditory perception
dynamic processing
bottom up and top-down
feedforward and feedback loops - when playing instrument
effects of musical training
Bausmann et al (2005)
- trained or not trained on melody
- trained = activated auditory and motor cortex and SMA
- untrained = only activated auditory cortex
- played tune in scanner
- trained = premotor and motor cortex AND auditory cortex - even though couldn’t hear it
musical training long-term brain effects
Ohinishi et al (2001)
- in musicians - more active
- dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
- planum temporale gyrus
- especially on left - treat music as a language
music vocalisation is more ___ hemisphere
right
