299This suggests that the musicians can adopt the unfamiliar sound environment more readily
than nonmusicians.Abstractions and expectations
Despite the emphasis given in above-described ERP studies on sound processing accuracy
at the sensory level in audition, music perception and cognition cannot be reduced merely
to a successful sensory-level processes. For instance, despite transpositions and modula-
tions within a musical piece, the ‘core’of the melody can be easily remembered and recogn-
ized, in other words, abstract sound and melody features are implicitly extrapolated from
the continuously changing acoustic input. Consequently, it was questioned whether
abstract sound relations and primitive concepts such as ‘ascending’or ‘descending’interval,
pitch continuum, or chord cadences could also be neurally encoded during a performance
of a parallel task.Figure 19.2Upper panel: The MMN elicited by a pitch change within familiar (tonal) pattern (left), Unfamiliar
(atonal) pattern (middle) and in pure sinusoidal tones (right) in musicians (thick line) and nonmusicians (thin
line) at Fz electrode. The arrows denote the onset of the pitch change in deviant patterns. The lines denote dif-
ference waves in which the event-related potential elicited by the standard tone has been subtracted from the
deviant-tone ERP. Bottom panel: the MMN mean amplitude (left) and latency (right) these conditions in musi-
cians (black) and nonmusicians (white) (s.e.m. at the top of each bar). The values were averaged across 10 fronto-
central electrodes.
In both subject groups, the MMN amplitude was larger in familiar than in unfamiliar condition and, further,
smallest in no-context condition. In addition, in musicians, the MMN latency was shorter in musicians than in
nonmusicians. Adapted from Ref. 45.
__Familiar Unfamiliar
-5 μV FZ+5 μV600 ms 300 msNo-context0- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
[μV]
FamiliarUnfamiliar No-context____
______50100150 __________(^200) __
[ms]
MMN amplitude MMN latency
White = Nonmusicians
Black = Musicians
FamiliarUnfamiliar No-context
- Nonmusicians
Musicians
- Nonmusicians