in the limbic system.
The Shared Affective Motion Experience (SAME) model suggests that when we hear music,
we hear the presence, or agency, of another person, whose actions we can interpret, imitate, and
predict. This experienced presence may include the person’s emotional and physical state, technical
expertise, social status, and intentions. Musical interplay can promote a powerful sense of shared
purpose and togetherness, a narrative of call and response, synchronization, prediction, interruption,
and imitation (2009:495). The authors state that imitation, synchronization, and shared experience
may be the key elements of successful work in music therapy and special education (2009:499).
Moreover, the authors refer to a body of studies which associate the human MNS with a wide range
of functions related to social cognition. These studies include imitation and imitation learning, inten-
tion understanding, empathy and theory of mind, self-recognition, and the evolution of language.
However, they acknowledge that studies of the MNS are still in its early stages.
Not all researchers agree that the MNS is responsible for such a wide range of functions. In
their article, ”The motor theory of social cognition: a critique”, Jacob and Jeannerod (2005) argue
that simulating an agent’s movements might be sufficient for understanding his motor intention, but
not sufficient for understanding his social and communicative intentions. They propose the existence
of a purely perceptual system of social perception. This system is supposed to involve three brain
areas; the superior temporal sulcus, the amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex (2005:21-23).
Symposium 3: Cultural Neuroscience of Music
Neural differences between groups of musicians
By means of EEG, Vuust et al. (NM IV no. 17) have studied the neural responses to musical features
in different groups of musicians and non-musicians (Vuust et al. 2011, 2012). They have developed a
new paradigm for measuring the mismatch negativity (MMN) response to six different types of musi-
cal change; pitch, timbre, location, intensity, rhythm, and pitch slide. The MMN response is pre-atten-
tive, automatically elicited in the absence of the subjects’ attention towards the stimuli.
The paradigm consists of four-tone “Alberti bass” patterns^30 played with piano sounds, alternat-
ing between standard sequences and deviant sequences. In the deviant sequences, the third tone is
changed. This permits comparison between the event-related potential (ERP) responses to the third
tone of the standard sequence and the third tone of the deviant sequence. One example of the para-
digm is the following:
standard / rhythm deviant / standard / location deviant / standard / pitch deviant / standard /
timbre deviant / standard / pitch slide deviant / standard / intensity deviant
The new paradigm is more musically interesting than traditional one-tone paradigms, and it permits
recording of MMN responses to six different musical deviants within a comparatively short time. The
authors point out that they have observed no differences in recorded responses using the new para-
digm, compared to the traditional oddball paradigm, which only applies one type of deviant.
Participants in the experiment were 11 non-musicians, 7 classical musicians, 10 jazz musicians, and
14 rock musicians. Their MMN responses were recorded by EEG while they listened to 20-minute
blocks of randomized sequences, watching a silent movie. After the EEG recording, the musical
skills of the participants were tested by means of a standardized test procedure, the Advanced Mea-
sure of Musical Audiation (AMMA).
The MMN findings showed that jazz musicians had larger MMN amplitude than the other
groups across the six different sound features. This indicates a greater sensitivity to sound changes
in jazz musicians compared to other types of musicians. In particular, the results showed enhanced
processing of pitch and pitch slide in jazz musicians. In the AMMA tests, jazz musicians and classi-
30 Alberti bass is a four-tone broken chord accompaniment used in classical keyboard music.