TY - JOUR
T1 - Auditory organization of sound sequences by a temporal or numerical regularity - A mismatch negativity study comparing musicians and non-musicians
AU - Van Zuijen, Titia L.
AU - Sussman, Elyse
AU - Winkler, István
AU - Näätänen, Risto
AU - Tervaniemi, Mari
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by The Academy of Finland (77322, 79820, 79821), the Finnish Graduate School of Psychology, the National Institutes of Health grant (R01 DC04263) and the Hungarian National Research Fund (OTKA 034112).
PY - 2005/5
Y1 - 2005/5
N2 - The human auditory system can encode regularities in the acoustic environment without the requirement of attention. We investigated whether the auditory system of musicians is more sensitive than that of non-musicians in encoding complex regularities. We presented tone sequences containing either a temporal or a numerical regularity. The sequence with the temporal regularity could be divided into segments of a constant duration while the segments contained a varying number of tones. The sequence with the numerical regularity, on the other hand, could be divided into segments containing a constant number of tones while the segments varied in duration. Auditory encoding of the regularity was determined by measuring whether an occasional segment lengthening, either in time or by number elicited the mismatch negativity (MMN). In both musicians and non-musicians, an MMN was elicited when the temporal regularity was violated. In contrast, only in musicians an MMN was elicited to violations of the numerical regularity. The results show that temporal processing is of general importance in audition since at an involuntary auditory processing stage a complex temporal regularity can be encoded irrespective of musical expertise. Furthermore, the auditory system of professional musicians can encode a numerical regularity without attention being required reflecting the functional importance of beat tracking in the perceptual organization of music.
AB - The human auditory system can encode regularities in the acoustic environment without the requirement of attention. We investigated whether the auditory system of musicians is more sensitive than that of non-musicians in encoding complex regularities. We presented tone sequences containing either a temporal or a numerical regularity. The sequence with the temporal regularity could be divided into segments of a constant duration while the segments contained a varying number of tones. The sequence with the numerical regularity, on the other hand, could be divided into segments containing a constant number of tones while the segments varied in duration. Auditory encoding of the regularity was determined by measuring whether an occasional segment lengthening, either in time or by number elicited the mismatch negativity (MMN). In both musicians and non-musicians, an MMN was elicited when the temporal regularity was violated. In contrast, only in musicians an MMN was elicited to violations of the numerical regularity. The results show that temporal processing is of general importance in audition since at an involuntary auditory processing stage a complex temporal regularity can be encoded irrespective of musical expertise. Furthermore, the auditory system of professional musicians can encode a numerical regularity without attention being required reflecting the functional importance of beat tracking in the perceptual organization of music.
KW - Mismatch negativity
KW - Musician
KW - Processing of numerosity
KW - Regularity detection
KW - Temporal processing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=16844366668&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=16844366668&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2004.10.007
DO - 10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2004.10.007
M3 - Article
C2 - 15820634
AN - SCOPUS:16844366668
SN - 0926-6410
VL - 23
SP - 270
EP - 276
JO - Cognitive Brain Research
JF - Cognitive Brain Research
IS - 2-3
ER -