Talks
The Amusic Brain: In Tune, Out of Key, and Unaware.
Dr. Elvira Brattico, University of Helsinki, Finland
Music perception and appreciation is universal and it is present early in life. However, for about 4% of the population what others call music is merely disturbing noise. Tone-deafness or congenital amusia, a lifelong disorder of music perception and appreciation, cannot be explained by hearing loss, brain damage, intellectual deficiencies or lack of exposure. Congenital amusia is hereditary and is associated with abnormal grey and white matter in the auditory cortex and the inferior frontal cortex. In order to relate these anatomical anomalies to the behavioral expression of the disorder, we measured the electrical brain activity of amusic subjects and matched controls while they listened to melodies and screened them for the presence of pitch anomalies. Here we show for the first time that the amusic brain can track quarter-tone pitch differences, as reflected from an early right-lateralized brain response. This indicates near-normal neural processing of musical pitch incongruities in congenital amusia. The importance of this finding lies in the revelation of an amusic brain equipped with the essential neural mechanisms to perceive fine-grained pitch differences. What distinguishes the amusic from the normal brain is the absence of awareness of this ability. The study opens avenues for the rehabilitation of congenital amusics, searching for appropriate ways to expose them to music and to allow their implicit melodic pitch perception become explicit.
How fast is the tempo in a happy music performance?
Dr. Roberto Bresin (KTH School of Computer Science and Communication, Sweden)
One of the goals of the BrainTuning project is to identify the values for the most important acoustical parameters when these are used for manipulating the expression in a music performance. Therefore, a typical question would be “How fast is the tempo in a happy music performance?”
We conducted a study for investigating the role of the performer when manipulating combinations of performance and structural parameters for obtaining a certain emotional expression. Twenty subjects were asked to adjust in real-time the values of seven performance parameters (tempo, sound level, articulation, phrasing, transposition, instrument, attack speed) for communicating five different emotional expressions (neutral, happy, scary, peaceful, sad) for each of four different scores. The scores were specifically composed for communicating four different emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, calmness).
Main results showed a general agreement with previous research in the field of expressive music performance. For example, there was a tendency to use faster tempi and louder sound level for happy and angry performances, and slower tempi and softer sound level for sad performances. We were also able to quantify the parameters; happy performances were played with an average tempo of 4.4 notes/second, while peaceful performances were played with an average tempo of 2 notes/second.
Happy performances were transposed to a higher pitch (in the range E5-C6, while sad and scary performances to a lower one (in the range D4-C5 and F3-A4 respectively). More detailed results will be presented during the talk together with sound examples.
Ingredients of Emotional Music: An Overview of the Features That Contribute to
Emotions in Music.
Prof. Tuomas Eerola, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
The capacity of music in arousing emotions in listeners is rarely disputed although the
causes are known to vary greatly. Whilst the music listening context and personal
associations are often implicated as important causes for emotional experiences, music
itself carries emotional cues that may be reliable recognized by most listeners, even by
children. For example, happiness is conveyed by major mode, fast tempo and staccato
articulation. In this overview of recent research efforts within the BrainTuning project,
the focus is on acoustically derived features of music that have been implicated as
dominant emotional cues in series of music and emotion studies. These include excerpts of
film music that has been rated in terms of dimensional and categorical models of emotions
and excerpts of classical, pop and jazz music that also contain listeners ratings of
emotions. The results of these analyses indicate high overall success rate in predicting
listeners emotion ratings across genres and provide a detailed account of the acoustic
cues that contribute systematically to emotions in music. The links between emotional
expression in speech and the present summary will be discussed in terms of the shared
resource hypothesis and direct applications of the results will be outlined.
How clients with depression deal with emotions through music therapy improvisations?
Prof. Jaakko Erkkilä, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
One part of the Tuning the Brain for Music research project deals with music therapy. Our basic task is to conduct a randomized controlled study on the effect of improvisational music therapy in the treatment of depression. The study follows the evidence based medicine guidelines and there are several outcome measures, some of which are standardized psychiatric measures, some music related measures. The aim of this presentation is to shed light on the role of improvisations created in the research therapies. In particular, the relationship between the clinical verbalized themes and the improvisational work is in the core of the analysis. Special attention is given to the emotional meaning of the improvisations. In the analysis, both qualitative (based on written and transcribed data from the sessions) and quantitative (computational improvisation analysis tools) strategies are employed. Since the study is not yet completed, only anecdotal findings based on few, selected cases will be presented. However, the preliminary findings show that on individual level there are certain musical features and feature combinations in the improvisations that symbolically represent the client’s emotional process and images attached to it – often in connection to her psychopathology. To conclude the presentation, preliminary findings about the appropriateness, benefit and epistemology of the method employed will be discussed.
Enabling emotional expression and interaction with new expressive interfaces.
Prof. Anders Friberg,
KTH School of Computer Science and Communication, Sweden
Many past studies about music and emotion have focused on the relation between musical features and specific emotions. A large number of these studies have been summarized qualitatively resulting in detailed specifications of musical features and the corresponding emotional expressions (e.g. Gabrielsson and Lindström, 2001; Juslin 2001; Juslin and Laukka, 2003). For example, a sad performance is associated with slow tempo, legato articulation and minor mode.
Using this qualitative knowledge as a starting point many new applications has recently been proposed. Possible applications include music analysis, music recommendation systems, music performance system, artistic interfaces etc. We have been working mainly on real-time systems both for generating musical expression (synthesis) and for recognizing musical expression (analysis). The basic tools have been a simple emotion recognizer and the KTH rule system for music performance. The emotion recognizer have been used for gesture and singing input in a computer game, as well as connected to an artificial head and other graphical displays. The rule system has been used in a layman conductor interface, and for doing experiments both with musicians and children. An extension of the rule system is under development in which an existing audio recording can be morphed into another expression manipulating tempo, dynamics and articulation of individual voices.
These applications and tools have been found to particularly useful in non-traditional musical contexts such as in computer games, behavioral studies or in music therapy. Recently, different innovative sound/music hardware interfaces have been designed, and are currently evaluated for the potential use of helping children with reduced hearing (hearing loss, deafness, cochlear implants) to explore and develop their sensitivity and discrimination of music and sound in a playful way.
Children's individual paths to musicianship: investigations of brain activity and
behaviour.
Dr. Minna Huotilainen, University of Helsinki, Finland
Adult musicians differ from each other in many ways: their personalities, preferences,
skills, and brain responses vary in relation to, for example, the instruments and musical
genres they have played and studied. In order to assess some of the aspects behind these
differences, we can study the developing musicians: children studying music. In a series
of developmental follow-up studies, we have investigated the individual paths that
children take towards musicianship. Brain responses in infants show that already at birth
we are equipped with a talent for music. In toddlers, the child's behaviour and
individual preferences are important denominators of attentive exposure: strong
inter-individual differences are observed in group situations and home observations as to
which musical activities give rise to positive emotions and are thus chosen over and over
again by the child when given the possibility to choose. In both toddlers and school-aged
children, relationships between musical genre prefenrences, instrument preferences,
musical skills and brain responses are sought. The goal of these studies is a more
thorough understanding of the role of early exposure and preferences in the formation of
musicianship.
Aesthetic appreciation of Music: Evidence from behavioral and electrophysiological studies.
Dr. Thomas Jacobsen, University of Leipzig, Germany
Recent years have seen an increase of interest in the neurocognition of aesthetic appreciation. In a series of studies, we have investigated intentional and spontaneous evaluation of musical stimuli with regard to concepts relevant for aesthetics. This talk will introduce a framework for the psychological study of aesthetic processing. One study augments prior findings of the influence of music expertise on music processing by investigating electrophysiological responses of music experts and laymen to musical chord sequences under two different task instructions. 16 music experts and 16 music laymen judged the aesthetic value (aesthetic task) as well as the harmonic correctness (correctness task) of chord sequences. The sequences consisted of five chords with the ending chord sounding either congruous, incongruous or mildly incongruous in relation to the harmonic context established by the preceding four chords. ERP data indicate differences in the processing of aesthetic and descriptive aspects of music, i.e., a late and widespread positivity was observed that was significantly larger for aesthetic compared to correctness judgements. There was a slight tendency for this difference to be larger for laymen than for experts. Additionally, established ERP effects reflecting the processing of harmonic rule violation were investigated. Here, group differences were observed in the processing of the mildly incongruent chords. Furthermore, experts showed larger early brain responses to the beginning of the whole chord sequence compared with laymen. Given the present results, a strong influence of expertise on aesthetic processing of music could not be revealed. However, independent of task demand, experts and laymen differed in their early processing of musical sounds. Using these as well as additional results, the talk will attempt to integrate findings on the aesthetic appreciation of musical stimuli with findings from other modalities.
Perception and production of the beat: Who has it, who doesn't and why.
Dr. Jessica Phillips-Silver, University of Montreal
The abilities to synchronize body movement with music, and to perceive whether another person is in sync with music, are basic musical abilities that do not require formal musical training to acquire. Infants are sensitive to rhythmic structures in music, and can be trained to « feel the beat » of a rhythm from body movement, just as adults do. Our movement in response to music is often covert, but it is an integral part of our multisensory experience with music. In the current study, we document the abilities for synchronized full-body movement to music, and for perception of asynchrony of another dancer, in the general population. From a neuropsychological perspective, we ask whether these rhythm perception and production abilites can be preserved in the context of congenital amusia (tone deafness), and furthermore, whether there exists a form of amusia specific to rhythm processing.
Music and language in the first days of life: fMRI studies of auditory processing in newborns.
Dr. Cristina Saccuman, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Italy
Human infants are inherently musical: they are equipped with the perceptual tools for analyzing subtle aspects of musical stimuli, and are strongly attracted to music. Music modulates their attention and arousal levels, and can provide pleasure or distress. The parallels between music and another uniquely human faculty, language, are clear: both are means of communication, consisting of patterned sequences of elements structured into sequences that convey meaning. In the first months of life, the link between language and music is even more direct. The melodious tones of infant-directed-speech modulate arousal and affect in infants, and guide acquisition of language skills. To this day, however, very little is known about the neural basis of music and language processing in the first days of life.
We used fMRI to measure brain activity in 1-to-3-day-old newborns while they listened to music and speech excerpts, and to the same excerpts altered in their structural or prosodic content. We show that the newborn brain is able to process music and speech specifically and is sensitive to small perceptual and structural differences. This neural architecture is present at birth, providing the potential to process basic and complex aspects of music and speech, a uniquely human capacity.
Audio-visual integration in motor systems in expert musicians as revealed by cortical alpha rhythms.
Dr. Fabrizio Vecchio,
Association Fatebenefratelli for Research (AFaR), Rome, Italy
Human frontoparietal “mirror” systems are active not only when we perform and observe aimed actions, but also when we express and comprehend emotions. Thus, they seem crucial for understanding actions or emotions of other people. Which role do these systems play in the understanding of music? And how in the interplay of sensorimotor and auditory processes?
This electroencephalographic (EEG) study tested the hypothesis that a “trained” human frontoparietal “mirror” systems, such as in expert musicians, could integrate visual and auditory information during observation of a video showing a classic music play.
Expert saxophonists watched and listened a video showing their music performance in two experimental conditions. The audio (musical production) and video (motor performance) were synchronized in one condition (“synchronized”), whereas they were dis-synchronized in the other condition (“dis-synchronized”). EEG rhythms were simultaneously recorded in quartets of saxophonists in these experimental conditions ( EBNeuro EEG amplifiers, sampling rate of 512 Hz, bandpass of 0.01-100 Hz, 30 electrodes). Cortical sources of EEG data were estimated by low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (LORETA). Cortical activation was indexed by percentage reduction in power of dominant alpha rhythms (8-12 Hz), the so called alpha event-related desynchronization (ERD). The defined regions of interest belonged to prefrontal and premotor (bilateral BA44/45, BA6v), inferior parietal (BA40) and ventral visual (bilateral BA19, BA20, BA37) and auditory (bilateral BA41, BA42) structures.
Amplitude of alpha ERD (i.e. cortical activation) was higher during the “synchronized” than “dis-synchronized” condition (p<0.05) in all the defined ROIs belonging to the motor mirror system. The effect was indeed, especially evident in Broca’s area (left BA 44/45). In contrast, no difference of alpha ERD between conditions was observed in the other structures.
In musicians, understanding of music play appears to be subserved by the integration of visuomotor and auditory information in “mirror” systems, including Broca’s area . Such integration may be related to the modulation of dominant brain oscillations such as alpha rhythms.