Perception of musical consonance and dissonance: an outcome of neural synchronization.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Shapira Lots I
PROVIDER: S-EPMC2607353 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Perception of musical consonance and dissonance: an outcome of neural synchronization.
Shapira Lots Inbal I Stone Lewi L
Journal of the Royal Society, Interface 20081201 29
While a number of theories have been advanced to account for why musical consonance is related to simple frequency ratios, as yet there is no completely satisfying explanation. Here, we explore the theory of synchronization properties of ensembles of coupled neural oscillators to demonstrate why simple frequency ratios may have achieved a special status and why they are important for auditory perception. The analysis shows that the mode-locked states ordering give precisely the standard ordering ...[more]
Similar Datasets
Project description:Previous research on harmony perception has mainly been concerned with horizontal aspects of harmony, turning less attention to how listeners perceive psychoacoustic qualities and emotions in single isolated chords. A recent study found mild dissonances to be more preferred than consonances in single chord perception, although the authors did not systematically vary register and consonance in their study; these omissions were explored here. An online empirical experiment was conducted where participants (N?=?410) evaluated chords on the dimensions of Valence, Tension, Energy, Consonance, and Preference; 15 different chords were played with piano timbre across two octaves. The results suggest significant differences on all dimensions across chord types, and a strong correlation between perceived dissonance and tension. The register and inversions contributed to the evaluations significantly, nonmusicians distinguishing between triadic inversions similarly to musicians. The mildly dissonant minor ninth, major ninth, and minor seventh chords were rated highest for preference, regardless of musical sophistication. The role of theoretical explanations such as aggregate dyadic consonance, the inverted-U hypothesis, and psychoacoustic roughness, harmonicity, and sharpness will be discussed to account for the preference of mild dissonance over consonance in single chord perception.
| S-EPMC4934671 | biostudies-literature
Project description: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.
| S-EPMC2804402 | biostudies-other
Project description:Consonant musical intervals tend to be more readily processed than dissonant intervals. In the present study, we explore the neural basis for this difference by registering how the brain responds after changes in consonance and dissonance, and how formal musical training modulates these responses. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were registered while participants were presented with sequences of consonant intervals interrupted by a dissonant interval, or sequences of dissonant intervals interrupted by a consonant interval. Participants were musicians and non-musicians. Our results show that brain responses triggered by changes in a consonant context differ from those triggered in a dissonant context. Changes in a sequence of consonant intervals are rapidly processed independently of musical expertise, as revealed by a change-related mismatch negativity (MMN, a component of the ERPs triggered by an odd stimulus in a sequence of stimuli) elicited in both musicians and non-musicians. In contrast, changes in a sequence of dissonant intervals elicited a late MMN only in participants with prolonged musical training. These different neural responses might form the basis for the processing advantages observed for consonance over dissonance and provide information about how formal musical training modulates them.
| S-EPMC6092559 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The contrast between consonance and dissonance is vital in making music emotionally meaningful. Consonance typically denotes perceived agreeableness and stability, while dissonance disagreeableness and a need of resolution. This study addresses the perception of consonance/dissonance in single intervals and chords with two empirical experiments conducted online. Experiment 1 explored the perception of a representative sample of intervals and chords to investigate the overlap between the seven most used concepts (Consonance, Smoothness, Purity, Harmoniousness, Tension, Pleasantness, Preference) denoting consonance/dissonance in all the available (60) empirical studies published since 1883. The results show that the concepts exhibit high correlations, albeit these are somewhat lower for non-musicians compared to musicians. In Experiment 2 the stimuli's cultural familiarity was divided into three levels, and the correlations between the key concepts of Consonance, Tension, Harmoniousness, Pleasantness, and Preference were further examined. Cultural familiarity affected the correlations drastically across both musicians and non-musicians, but in different ways. Tension maintained relatively high correlations with Consonance across musical expertise and cultural familiarity levels, making it a useful concept for studies addressing both musicians and non-musicians. On the basis of the results a control for cultural familiarity and musical expertise is recommended for all studies investigating consonance/dissonance perception.
| S-EPMC7250829 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Human listeners prefer consonant over dissonant musical intervals and the perceived contrast between these classes is reduced with cochlear hearing loss. Population-level activity of normal and impaired model auditory-nerve (AN) fibers was examined to determine (1) if peripheral auditory neurons exhibit correlates of consonance and dissonance and (2) if the reduced perceptual difference between these qualities observed for hearing-impaired listeners can be explained by impaired AN responses. In addition, acoustical correlates of consonance-dissonance were also explored including periodicity and roughness. Among the chromatic pitch combinations of music, consonant intervals/chords yielded more robust neural pitch-salience magnitudes (determined by harmonicity/periodicity) than dissonant intervals/chords. In addition, AN pitch-salience magnitudes correctly predicted the ordering of hierarchical pitch and chordal sonorities described by Western music theory. Cochlear hearing impairment compressed pitch salience estimates between consonant and dissonant pitch relationships. The reduction in contrast of neural responses following cochlear hearing loss may explain the inability of hearing-impaired listeners to distinguish musical qualia as clearly as normal-hearing individuals. Of the neural and acoustic correlates explored, AN pitch salience was the best predictor of behavioral data. Results ultimately show that basic pitch relationships governing music are already present in initial stages of neural processing at the AN level.
| S-EPMC3188968 | biostudies-other
Project description:Some combinations of musical notes sound pleasing and are termed "consonant," but others sound unpleasant and are termed "dissonant." The distinction between consonance and dissonance plays a central role in Western music, and its origins have posed one of the oldest and most debated problems in perception. In modern times, dissonance has been widely believed to be the product of "beating": interference between frequency components in the cochlea that has been believed to be more pronounced in dissonant than consonant sounds. However, harmonic frequency relations, a higher-order sound attribute closely related to pitch perception, has also been proposed to account for consonance. To tease apart theories of musical consonance, we tested sound preferences in individuals with congenital amusia, a neurogenetic disorder characterized by abnormal pitch perception. We assessed amusics' preferences for musical chords as well as for the isolated acoustic properties of beating and harmonicity. In contrast to control subjects, amusic listeners showed no preference for consonance, rating the pleasantness of consonant chords no higher than that of dissonant chords. Amusics also failed to exhibit the normally observed preference for harmonic over inharmonic tones, nor could they discriminate such tones from each other. Despite these abnormalities, amusics exhibited normal preferences and discrimination for stimuli with and without beating. This dissociation indicates that, contrary to classic theories, beating is unlikely to underlie consonance. Our results instead suggest the need to integrate harmonicity as a foundation of music preferences, and illustrate how amusia may be used to investigate normal auditory function.
| S-EPMC3511708 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Musical expertise is associated with structural and functional changes in the brain that underlie facilitated auditory perception. We investigated whether the phase locking (PL) and amplitude modulations (AM) of neuronal oscillations in response to musical chords are correlated with musical expertise and whether they reflect the prototypicality of chords in Western tonal music. To this aim, we recorded magnetoencephalography (MEG) while musicians and non-musicians were presented with common prototypical major and minor chords, and with uncommon, non-prototypical dissonant and mistuned chords, while watching a silenced movie. We then analyzed the PL and AM of ongoing oscillations in the theta (4-8 Hz) alpha (8-14 Hz), beta- (14-30 Hz) and gamma- (30-80 Hz) bands to these chords. We found that musical expertise was associated with strengthened PL of ongoing oscillations to chords over a wide frequency range during the first 300 ms from stimulus onset, as opposed to increased alpha-band AM to chords over temporal MEG channels. In musicians, the gamma-band PL was strongest to non-prototypical compared to other chords, while in non-musicians PL was strongest to minor chords. In both musicians and non-musicians the long-latency (> 200 ms) gamma-band PL was also sensitive to chord identity, and particularly to the amplitude modulations (beats) of the dissonant chord. These findings suggest that musical expertise modulates oscillation PL to musical chords and that the strength of these modulations is dependent on chord prototypicality.
| S-EPMC4546391 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Western musical styles use a large variety of chords and vertical sonorities. Based on objective acoustical properties, chords can be situated on a dissonant-consonant continuum. While this might to some extent converge with the unpleasant-pleasant continuum, subjective liking might diverge for various chord forms from music across different styles. Our study aimed to investigate how well appraisals of the roughness and pleasantness dimensions of isolated chords taken from real-world music are predicted by Parncutt's established model of sensory dissonance. Furthermore, we related these subjective ratings to style of origin and acoustical features of the chords as well as musical sophistication of the raters. Ratings were obtained for chords deemed representative of the harmonic language of three different musical styles (classical, jazz and avant-garde music), plus randomly generated chords. Results indicate that pleasantness and roughness ratings were, on average, mirror opposites; however, their relative distribution differed greatly across styles, reflecting different underlying aesthetic ideals. Parncutt's model only weakly predicted ratings for all but Classical chords, suggesting that listeners' appraisal of the dissonance and pleasantness of chords bears not only on stimulus-side but also on listener-side factors. Indeed, we found that levels of musical sophistication negatively predicted listeners' tendency to rate the consonance and pleasantness of any one chord as coupled measures, suggesting that musical education and expertise may serve to individuate how these musical dimensions are apprehended.
| S-EPMC6355932 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The rhythmic nature of speech may recruit entrainment mechanisms in a manner similar to music. In the current study, we tested the hypothesis that individuals who display a severe deficit in synchronizing their taps to a musical beat (called beat-deaf here) would also experience difficulties entraining to speech. The beat-deaf participants and their matched controls were required to align taps with the perceived regularity in the rhythm of naturally spoken, regularly spoken, and sung sentences. The results showed that beat-deaf individuals synchronized their taps less accurately than the control group across conditions. In addition, participants from both groups exhibited more inter-tap variability to natural speech than to regularly spoken and sung sentences. The findings support the idea that acoustic periodicity is a major factor in domain-general entrainment to both music and speech. Therefore, a beat-finding deficit may affect periodic auditory rhythms in general, not just those for music.
| S-EPMC6680836 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Though the music produced by an ensemble is influenced by multiple factors, including musical genre, musician skill, and individual interpretation, rhythmic synchronization is at the foundation of musical interaction. Here, we study the statistical nature of the mutual interaction between two humans synchronizing rhythms. We find that the interbeat intervals of both laypeople and professional musicians exhibit scale-free (power law) cross-correlations. Surprisingly, the next beat to be played by one person is dependent on the entire history of the other person's interbeat intervals on timescales up to several minutes. To understand this finding, we propose a general stochastic model for mutually interacting complex systems, which suggests a physiologically motivated explanation for the occurrence of scale-free cross-correlations. We show that the observed long-term memory phenomenon in rhythmic synchronization can be imitated by fractal coupling of separately recorded or synthesized audio tracks and thus applied in electronic music. Though this study provides an understanding of fundamental characteristics of timing and synchronization at the interbrain level, the mutually interacting complex systems model may also be applied to study the dynamics of other complex systems where scale-free cross-correlations have been observed, including econophysics, physiological time series, and collective behavior of animal flocks.
| S-EPMC4246955 | biostudies-literature