Neural correlates of consonance, dissonance, and the hierarchy of musical pitch in the human brainstem. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience [J Neurosci] Journal article | | Title | Neural correlates of consonance, dissonance, and the hierarchy of musical pitch in the human brainstem. | | Author(s) | Bidelman GM, Krishnan A | | Institution | Department of Speech Language, Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2038, USA. | | Source | J Neurosci 2009 Oct 21; 29(42):13165-71. | | MeSH | Acoustic Stimulation
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Auditory Pathways
Brain Mapping
Brain Stem
Electroencephalography
Evoked Potentials, Auditory
Female
Humans
Male
Music
Pitch Perception
Psycholinguistics
Reaction Time
Sound
Statistics as Topic
Time Factors
Young Adult
| | Abstract | Consonant and dissonant pitch relationships in music provide the foundation of melody and harmony, the building blocks of Western tonal music. We hypothesized that phase-locked neural activity within the brainstem may preserve information relevant to these important perceptual attributes of music. To this end, we measured brainstem frequency-following responses (FFRs) from nonmusicians in response to the dichotic presentation of nine musical intervals that varied in their degree of consonance and dissonance. Neural pitch salience was computed for each response using temporally based autocorrelation and harmonic pitch sieve analyses. Brainstem responses to consonant intervals were more robust and yielded stronger pitch salience than those to dissonant intervals. In addition, the ordering of neural pitch salience across musical intervals followed the hierarchical arrangement of pitch stipulated by Western music theory. Finally, pitch salience derived from neural data showed high correspondence with behavioral consonance judgments (r = 0.81). These results suggest that brainstem neural mechanisms mediating pitch processing show preferential encoding of consonant musical relationships and, furthermore, preserve the hierarchical pitch relationships found in music, even for individuals without formal musical training. We infer that the basic pitch relationships governing music may be rooted in low-level sensory processing and that an encoding scheme that favors consonant pitch relationships may be one reason why such intervals are preferred behaviorally. | | Language | eng | | Pub Type(s) | Journal Article
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
| | PubMed ID | 19846704 |
|
|
| |
Advertise on this site.
| | |
|
