Dataset Information

A behavioral study on tonal working memory in musicians and non-musicians.

ABSTRACT: Tonal working memory (WM) refers to the maintenance and the online manipulation of tonal information and has been suggested to involve different mechanisms than verbal WM. Previous research has suggested that verbal WM performance is determined by the duration instead of the number of verbal materials. We investigated in the present study to what degree that the number and the duration of notes in a sequence influence the tonal WM in participants with or without professional musical training. The forward tonal discrimination task in Experiment 1 tested the maintenance of the tonal information and the backward N-back tonal task in Experiment 2 probed the running memory span of tonal information. Results show that the number of notes, but not the duration of notes in a tone sequence significantly affects tonal WM performance for both musicians and non-musicians. In addition, within a minimum musical context, musicians outperformed non-musicians in the N-back tonal task but not the forward tone sequence discrimination task. These findings indicate that the capacity of tonal WM is determined by the number of notes but not the duration of notes in a sequence to be memorized, suggesting a different mechanism underlying tonal WM from verbal WM. Furthermore, the present study demonstrated that N-back tonal task is a quantitative and sensitive measure of the effect of musical training on tonal WM.

SUBMITTER: Ding Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6084024 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A behavioral study on tonal working memory in musicians and non-musicians.

Ding Yue Y Gray Kathleen K Forrence Alexander A Wang Xiaoqin X Huang Juan J

PloS one 20180802 8

Tonal working memory (WM) refers to the maintenance and the online manipulation of tonal information and has been suggested to involve different mechanisms than verbal WM. Previous research has suggested that verbal WM performance is determined by the duration instead of the number of verbal materials. We investigated in the present study to what degree that the number and the duration of notes in a sequence influence the tonal WM in participants with or without professional musical training. Th ...[more]

PMID: 30071003

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Project description:PURPOSE:To investigate if, regardless of language background (tonal or non-tonal), musicians may show stronger CP than non-musicians; To examine if native speakers of English (English or non-tonal musicians henceforth) or Mandarin Chinese (Mandarin or tonal musicians henceforth) can better accommodate multiple functions of the same acoustic cue and if musicians' sensitivity to pitch of lexical tones comes at the cost of slower processing. METHOD:English and Mandarin Musicians and non-musicians performed a categorical identification and a discrimination task on rising and falling continua of fundamental frequency on two vowels with 9 duration values. RESULTS:Non-tonal musicians exhibited significantly stronger categorical perception of pitch contour than non-tonal non-musicians. However, tonal musicians did not consistently perceive the two types of pitch directions more categorically than tonal non-musicians. Both tonal and non-tonal musicians also benefited more from increasing stimulus duration in processing pitch changes than non-musicians and they generally require less time for pitch processing. Musicians were also more sensitive to intrinsic F0 in pitch perception and differences of pitch types. CONCLUSION:The effect of musical training strengthens categorical perception more consistently in non-tonal speakers than tonal speakers. Overall, musicians benefit more from increased stimulus duration, due perhaps to their greater sensitivity to temporal information, thus allowing them to be better at forming a more robust auditory representation and matching sounds to internalized memory templates. Musicians also attended more to acoustic details such as intrinsic F0 and pitch types in pitch processing, and yet, overall, their categorization of pitch was not compromised by traces of these acoustic details from their auditory short-term working memory. These findings may lead to a better understanding of pitch perception deficits in special populations, particularly among individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Project description:In audiovisual music perception, visual information from a musical instrument being played is available prior to the onset of the corresponding musical sound and consequently allows a perceiver to form a prediction about the upcoming audio music. This prediction in audiovisual music perception, compared to auditory music perception, leads to lower N1 and P2 amplitudes and latencies. Although previous research suggests that audiovisual experience, such as previous musical experience may enhance this prediction, a remaining question is to what extent musical experience modifies N1 and P2 amplitudes and latencies. Furthermore, corresponding event-related phase modulations quantified as inter-trial phase coherence (ITPC) have not previously been reported for audiovisual music perception. In the current study, audio video recordings of a keyboard key being played were presented to musicians and non-musicians in audio only (AO), video only (VO), and audiovisual (AV) conditions. With predictive movements from playing the keyboard isolated from AV music perception (AV-VO), the current findings demonstrated that, compared to the AO condition, both groups had a similar decrease in N1 amplitude and latency, and P2 amplitude, along with correspondingly lower ITPC values in the delta, theta, and alpha frequency bands. However, while musicians showed lower ITPC values in the beta-band in AV-VO compared to the AO, non-musicians did not show this pattern. Findings indicate that AV perception may be broadly correlated with auditory perception, and differences between musicians and non-musicians further indicate musical experience to be a specific factor influencing AV perception. Predicting an upcoming sound in AV music perception may involve visual predictory processes, as well as beta-band oscillations, which may be influenced by years of musical training. This study highlights possible interconnectivity in AV perception as well as potential modulation with experience.

Dataset Information

A behavioral study on tonal working memory in musicians and non-musicians.

Publications

A behavioral study on tonal working memory in musicians and non-musicians.

Similar Datasets

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