人们能够无意识地检测到环境中的统计规则、并利用这些规则进行学习,这种能力被称为统计学习.作为一种领域一般性且无意识的基本能力,统计学习应该相对较少地受个体差异(如智力和成熟)的影响.该研究以视觉图形为材料、采用三联体学习范式,考察了20名轻中度智力障碍儿童的视觉统计学习.结果发现:(1)轻度智力障碍儿童保留了对视觉图形的统计规则的统计学习能力;(2)中度智力障碍儿童的视觉统计学习受到了损害;(3)智力障碍儿童的视觉统计学习不受年级的影响.这些结果说明,在智力障碍儿童中,统计学习受到智力而非成熟的影响.轻度智力障碍儿童保留统计学习能力,可以利用这种学习机制帮助、促进智力障碍儿童认知、语言和社会性等方面的发展.

音乐节拍中的信息十分丰富,变化的方式也千差万别,因此节拍的加工是十分复杂的认知过程。国 外神经认知领域对音乐节拍的研究从内容来看可归纳为：节拍违反的加工,节拍速度的加工,节拍类型的加工,以及节拍与节奏的区别等几个方面。目前关于音乐节 拍的研究还处于初步探索阶段,未来的研究应明确时间间隔、速度变化、重音模式加工的神经基础,并就复杂节拍的加工,个体感受性差异等问题进一步展开研究。

音乐知觉期待是音乐时间知觉过 程中重要的心理现象,它直接影响音乐作为时间艺术的本质特性。文章主要探讨了和音乐知觉期待相关的以下几方面问题:音乐知觉期待存在的范畴,音乐知觉期待 依靠音乐元素的四种期待率,音乐知觉期待存在的两种类别和采用的五种研究范式,音乐知觉期待研究的主要领域(神经生理机制、记忆和启动效应等方面),以及 音乐知觉期待通过音乐时间知觉和时间估计对音乐时间操作的影响。展望该领域今后研究的方向,可以认为,对音乐知觉期待的心理特征和存在条件在音乐时间操作 中作用的进一步研究,将在很大程度上揭示音乐时间操作中的普遍现象——计时偏差的真正原因。

Statistical learning allows learners to detect regularities in the environment and appears to emerge automatically as a consequence of experience. Statistical learning paradigms bear many similarities to those of artificial grammar learning and other types of implicit learning. However, whether learning effects in statistical learning tasks are driven by implicit knowledge has not been thoroughly examined. The present study addressed this gap by examining the role of implicit and explicit knowledge within the context of a typical auditory statistical learning paradigm. Learners were exposed to a continuous stream of repeating nonsense words. Learning was tested (a) directly via a forced-choice recognition test combined with a remember/know procedure and (b) indirectly through a novel reaction time (RT) test. Behavior and brain potentials revealed statistical learning effects with both tests. On the recognition test, accurate responses were associated with subjective feelings of stronger recollection, and learned nonsense words relative to nonword foils elicited an enhanced late positive potential indicative of explicit knowledge. On the RT test, both RTs and P300 amplitudes differed as a function of syllable position, reflecting facilitation attributable to statistical learning. Explicit stimulus recognition did not correlate with RT or P300 effects on the RT test. These results provide evidence that explicit knowledge is accrued during statistical learning, while bringing out the possibility that dissociable implicit representations are acquired in parallel. The commonly used recognition measure primarily reflects explicit knowledge, and thus may underestimate the total amount of knowledge produced by statistical learning. Indirect measures may be more sensitive indices of learning, capturing knowledge above and beyond what is reflected by recognition accuracy.

Presents a study to determine whether there is an electrophysical marker of musical expectancy. Experiment protocol; Event-related potentials (ERPs) as used for models of expectancy; Cloze probability.

A chord generates expectancies for related chords to follow. Expectancies can be studied by measuring the time to discriminate between a target chord and a mistuned foil as a function of the target relatedness to a preceding prime chord. This priming paradigm has been employed to demonstrate that related targets are processed more quickly and are perceived to be more consonant than are unrelated targets (Bharucha & Stoeckig, 1986). The priming experiments in the present paper were designed to determine whether expectancies are generated at a cognitive level, by activation spreading through a network that represents harmonic relationships, or solely at a sensory level, by the activation of frequency-specific units. In Experiment 1, prime-target pairs shared no component tones, but related pairs had overlapping frequency spectra. In Experiment 2, all overlapping frequency components were eliminated. Priming was equally strong in both experiments. We conclude that frequency-specific repetition priming cannot account for expectancies in harmony, suggesting that activation spreads at a cognitive level of representation.

Artificial grammar learning depends on acquisition of abstract structural representations rather than domain-specific representational constraints, or so many studies tell us. Using an artificial grammar task, we compared learning performance in two stimulus domains in which respondents have differing tacit prior knowledge. We found that despite grammatically identical sequence structures, learning was better for harmonically related chord sequences than for letter name sequences or harmonically unrelated chord sequences. We also found transfer effects within the musical and letter name tasks, but not across the domains. We conclude that knowledge acquired in implicit learning depends not only on abstract features of structured stimuli, but that the learning of regularities is in some respects domain-specific and strongly linked to particular features of the stimulus domain.

The phenomenon commonly known as subjective accenting refers to the fact that identical sound events within purely isochronous sequences are perceived as unequal. Although subjective accenting has been extensively explored using behavioral methods, no physiological evidence has ever been provided for it. In the present study, we tested the notion that these perceived irregularities are related to the dynamic deployment of attention. We disrupted listeners' expectancies in different positions of auditory equitone sequences and measured their responses through brain event-related potentials (ERPs). Significant differences in a late parietal (P3-like) ERP component were found between the responses elicited on odd-numbered versus even-numbered positions, suggesting that a default binary metric structure was perceived. Our findings indicate that this phenomenon has a rather cognitive, attention-dependent origin, partly affected by musical expertise.

The dominant theory of what people can learn implicitly is that they learn chunks of adjacent elements in sequences. A type of musical grammar that goes beyond specifying allowable chunks is provided by serialist or 12-tone music. The rules constitute operations over variables and could not be appreciated as such by a system that can only chunk elements together. A series of studies investigated the extent to which people could implicitly (or explicitly) learn the structures of serialist music. We found that people who had no background in atonal music did not learn the structures, but highly selected participants with an interest in atonal music could implicitly learn to detect melodies instantiating the structures. The results have implications for both theorists of implicit learning and composers who may wish to know which structures they put into a piece of music can be appreciated.

We present the results of a study testing the often-theorized role of musical expectations in inducing listeners emotions in a live flute concert experiment with 50 participants. Using an audience response system developed for this purpose, we measured subjective experience and peripheral psychophysiological changes continuously. To confirm the existence of the link between expectation and emotion, we used a threefold approach. (1) On the basis of an information-theoretic cognitive model, melodic pitch expectations were predicted by analyzing the musical stimuli used (six pieces of solo flute music). (2) A continuous rating scale was used by half of the audience to measure their experience of unexpectedness toward the music heard. (3) Emotional reactions were measured using a multicomponent approach: subjective feeling (valence and arousal rated continuously by the other half of the audience members), expressive behavior (facial EMG), and peripheral arousal (the latter two being measured in all 50 participants). Results confirmed the predicted relationship between high-information-content musical events, the violation of musical expectations (in corresponding ratings), and emotional reactions (psychologically and physiologically). Musical structures leading to expectation reactions were manifested in emotional reactions at different emotion component levels (increases in subjective arousal and autonomic nervous system activations). These results emphasize the role of musical structure in emotion induction, leading to a further understanding of the frequently experienced emotional effects of music.

Research on music and language in recent decades has focused on their overlapping neurophysiological, perceptual, and cognitive underpinnings, ranging from the mechanism for encoding basic auditory cues to the mechanism for detecting violations in phrase structure. These overlaps have most often been identified in musicians with musical knowledge that was acquired explicitly, through formal training. In this paper, we review independent bodies of work in music and language that suggest an important role for implicitly acquired knowledge, implicit memory, and their associated neural structures in the acquisition of linguistic or musical grammar. These findings motivate potential new work that examines music and language comparatively in the context of the implicit memory system.

Statistical learning (SL) is typically considered to be a domain-general mechanism by which cognitive systems discover the underlying distributional properties of the input. However, recent studies examining whether there are commonalities in the learning of distributional information across different domains or modalities consistently reveal modality and stimulus specificity. Therefore, important questions are how and why a hypothesized domain-general learning mechanism systematically produces such effects. Here, we offer a theoretical framework according to which SL is not a unitary mechanism, but a set of domain-general computational principles that operate in different modalities and, therefore, are subject to the specific constraints characteristic of their respective brain regions. This framework offers testable predictions and we discuss its computational and neurobiological plausibility.

Rhythmic abilities vary widely in the general population, but little is known about the factors...

Abstract Numerous past studies have investigated neurophysiological correlates of music-syntactic processing. However, only little is known about how prior knowledge about an upcoming syntactically irregular event modulates brain correlates of music-syntactic processing. Two versions of a short chord sequence were presented repeatedly to non-musicians (n090009=09000920) and musicians (n090009=09000920). One sequence version ended on a syntactically regular chord, and the other one ended on a syntactically irregular chord. Participants were either informed (cued condition), or not informed (non-cued condition) about whether the sequence would end on the regular or the irregular chord. Results indicate that in the cued condition (compared to the non-cued condition) the peak latency of the early right anterior negativity (ERAN), elicited by irregular chords, was earlier in both non-musicians and musicians. However, the expectations due to the knowledge about the upcoming event (veridical expectations) did not influence the amplitude of the ERAN. These results suggest that veridical expectations modulate only the speed, but not the principle mechanisms, of music-syntactic processing.

Abstract Part of musical understanding and enjoyment stems from the ability to accurately predict what note (or one of a small set of notes) is likely to follow after hearing the first part of a melody. Selective violation of expectations can add to aesthetic response but radical or frequent violations are likely to be disliked or not comprehended. In this study we investigated whether a lifetime of exposure to music among untrained older adults would enhance their reaction to unexpected endings of unfamiliar melodies. Older and younger adults listened to melodies that had expected or unexpected ending notes, according to Western music theory. Ratings of goodness-of-fit were similar in the groups, as was ERP response to the note onset (N1). However, in later time windows (P200 and Late Positive Component), the amplitude of a response to unexpected and expected endings was both larger in older adults, corresponding to greater sensitivity, and more widespread in locus, consistent with a dedifferentiation pattern. Lateralization patterns also differed. We conclude that older adults refine their understanding of this important aspect of music throughout life, with the ability supported by changing patterns of neural activity. Copyright 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Musical structure is complex, consisting of a small set of elements that combine to form hierarchical levels of pitch and temporal structure according to grammatical rules. As with language, different systems use different elements and rules for combination. Drawing on recent findings, we propose that music acquisition begins with basic features, such as peripheral frequency-coding mechanisms and multisensory timing connections, and proceeds through enculturation, whereby everyday exposure to a particular music system creates, in a systematic order of acquisition, culture-specific brain structures and representations. Finally, we propose that formal musical training invokes domain-specific processes that affect salience of musical input and the amount of cortical tissue devoted to its processing, as well as domain-general processes of attention and executive functioning.

Abstract Meter is considered an important structuring mechanism in the perception and experience of rhythm in music. Combining behavioral and electrophysiological measures, in the present study we investigate whether meter is more likely a learned phenomenon, possibly a result of musical expertise, or whether sensitivity to meter is also active in adult nonmusicians and newborn infants. The results provide evidence that meter induction is active in adult nonmusicians and that beat induction is already functional right after birth.

Whether music has the potential to enhance cognition has been a question of great psychological...

Abstract The majority of studies on music processing in children used simple musical stimuli. Here, primary schoolchildren judged the appropriateness of musical closure in expressive polyphone music, while high-density electroencephalography was recorded. Stimuli ended either regularly or contained refined in-key harmonic transgressions at closure. The children discriminated the transgressions well above chance. Regular and transgressed endings evoked opposite scalp voltage configurations peaking around 400ms after stimulus onset with bilateral frontal negativity for regular and centro-posterior negativity (CPN) for transgressed endings. A positive correlation could be established between strength of the CPN response and rater sensitivity (d-prime). We also investigated whether the capacity to discriminate the transgressions was supported by auditory domain specific or general cognitive mechanisms, and found that working memory capacity predicted transgression discrimination. Latency and distribution of the CPN are reminiscent of the N400, typically observed in response to semantic incongruities in language. Therefore our observation is intriguing, as the CPN occurred here within an intra-musical context, without any symbols referring to the external world. Moreover, the harmonic in-key transgressions that we implemented may be considered syntactical as they transgress structural rules. Such structural incongruities in music are typically followed by an early right anterior negativity (ERAN) and an N5, but not so here. Putative contributive sources of the CPN were localized in left pre-motor, mid-posterior cingulate and superior parietal regions of the brain that can be linked to integration processing. These results suggest that, at least in children, processing of syntax and meaning may coincide in complex intra-musical contexts. Copyright 漏 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Both language and music consist of sequences that are structured according to syntactic regularities. We used two specific event-related brain potential (ERP) components to investigate music-syntactic processing in children: the ERAN (early right anterior negativity) and the N5. The neural resources underlying these processes have been posited to overlap with those involved in the processing of linguistic syntax. Thus, we expected children with specific language impairment (SLI, which is characterized by deficient processing of linguistic syntax) to demonstrate difficulties with music-syntactic processing. Such difficulties were indeed observed in the neural correlates of music-syntactic processing: neither an ERAN nor an N5 was elicited in children with SLI, whereas both components were evoked in age-matched control children with typical language development. Moreover, the amplitudes of ERAN and N5 were correlated with subtests of a language development test. These data provide evidence for a strong interrelation between the language and the music processing system, thereby setting the ground for possible effects of musical training in SLI therapy.

Music is a basic and ubiquitous socio-cognitive domain. However, our understanding of the time course of the development of music perception, particularly regarding implicit knowledge of music-syntactic regularities, remains contradictory and incomplete. Some authors assume that the acquisition of knowledge about these regularities lasts until late childhood, but there is also evidence for the presence of such knowledge in four- and five-year-olds. To explore whether such knowledge is already present in younger children, we tested whether 30-month-olds (N = 62) show neurophysiological responses to music-syntactically irregular harmonies. We observed an early right anterior negativity in response to both irregular in-key and out-of-key chords. The N5, a brain response usually present in older children and adults, was not observed, indicating that processes of harmonic integration (as reflected in the N5) are still in development in this age group. In conclusion, our results indicate that 30-month-olds already have acquired implicit knowledge of complex harmonic music-syntactic regularities and process musical information according to this knowledge.

How do listeners learn about the statistical regularities underlying musical harmony? In traditional Western music, certain chords predict the occurrence of other chords: Given a particular chord, not all chords are equally likely to follow. In Experiments 1 and 2, we investigated whether adults make use of statistical information when learning new musical structures. Listeners were exposed to a novel musical system containing phrases generated using an artificial grammar. This new system contained statistical structure quite different from Western tonal music. Our results suggest that learners take advantage of the statistical patterning of chords to acquire new musical structures, similar to learning processes previously observed for language learning.

We found that the AEP P3a component is sensitive to violation of temporal expectancies. In addition, behavioural data and P3a correlation coefficients (CCs) suggest that temporal patterns are processed sequentially in nonmusicians but are processed in a hierarchical way in rhythmic experts.

Neither music nor spoken language form uniform auditory streams, rather, they are structured into phrases. For the perception of such structures, the detection of phrase boundaries is crucial. We discovered electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) correlates for the perception of phrase boundaries in music. In EEG, this process was marked by a positive wave approximately between 500 and 600 ms after the offset of a phrase boundary with a centroparietal maximum. In MEG, we found major activity in an even broader time window (400-700 ms). Source localization revealed that likely candidates for the generation of the observed effects are structures in the limbic system, including anterior and posterior cingulate as well as posterior mediotemporal cortex. The timing and topography of the EEG effect bear some resemblance to a positive shift (closure positive shift, CPS) found for prosodic phrase boundaries during speech perception in an earlier study, suggesting that the underlying processes might be related. Because the brain structures, which possibly underlie the observed effects, are known to be involved in memory and attention processes, we suggest that the CPS may not reflect the detection of the phrase boundary as such, but those memory and attention related processes that are necessary to guide the attention focus from one phrase to the next, thereby closing the former and opening up the next phrase.

The present study investigated simultaneous processing of language and music using visually presented sentences and auditorily presented chord sequences. Music-syntactically regular and irregular chord functions were presented synchronously with syntactically correct or incorrect words, or with words that had either a high or a low semantic cloze probability. Music-syntactically irregular chords elicited an early right anterior negativity (ERAN). Syntactically incorrect words elicited a left anterior negativity (LAN). The LAN was clearly reduced when words were presented simultaneously with music-syntactically irregular chord functions. Processing of high and low cloze-probability words as indexed by the N400 was not affected by the presentation of irregular chord functions. In a control experiment, the LAN was not affected by physically deviant tones that elicited a mismatch negativity (MMN). Results demonstrate that processing of musical syntax (as reflected in the ERAN) interacts with the processing of linguistic syntax (as reflected in the LAN), and that this interaction is not due to a general effect of deviance-related negativities that precede an LAN. Findings thus indicate a strong overlap of neural resources involved in the processing of syntax in language and music.

Music-syntactic irregularities often co-occur with the processing of physical irregularities. In this study we constructed chord-sequences such that perceived differences in the cognitive processing between regular and irregular chords could not be due to the sensory processing of acoustic factors like pitch repetition or pitch commonality (the major component of 'sensory dissonance').Two groups of subjects (musicians and nonmusicians) were investigated with electroencephalography (EEG). Irregular chords elicited an early right anterior negativity (ERAN) in the event-related brain potentials (ERPs). The ERAN had a latency of around 180 ms after the onset of the music-syntactically irregular chords, and had maximum amplitude values over right anterior electrode sites.Because irregular chords were hardly detectable based on acoustical factors (such as pitch repetition and sensory dissonance), this ERAN effect reflects for the most part cognitive (not sensory) components of regularity-based, music-syntactic processing. Our study represents a methodological advance compared to previous ERP-studies investigating the neural processing of music-syntactically irregular chords.

Several studies have found learning of biconditional grammars only under intentional rule-search conditions (e.g., Johnstone & Shanks, 2001). Memorization of strings merely led to the learning of chunks. We used a musical grammar, a diatonic inversion, that is a type of biconditional grammar. Participants either were required to memorize a set of grammatical tunes (incidental learning), or were asked to search for the underlying rule whilst being given feedback about their performance (intentional learning). The results showed that participants in the incidental-learning condition did not learn the inversion rule and merely acquired explicit knowledge about chunks. However, participants in the intentional-learning condition learnt both the inversion rule and chunks.

Auditory modeling is used to investigate the role of short-term memory in probe-tone experiments. A framework for auditory modeling is first defined, based on a distinction between auditory images, processes, and stimulus-driven inferences. Experiments I and II of the probe-tone experiments described by C. Krumhansl and E. Kessler (1982) are simulated. The results show that a short-term memory model, working on echoic images of periodicity pitch, may account for the probe-tone ratings. The simulations challenge the claim that probe-tone experiments provide evidence that listeners familiar with Western music have abstracted tonal hierarchies in a long-term memory.

Abstract Much of what we know and love about music is based on implicitly acquired mental representations of musical pitches and the relationships between them. While previous studies have shown that these mental representations of music can be acquired rapidly and can influence preference, it is still unclear which aspects of music influence learning and preference formation. This article reports two experiments that use an artificial musical system to examine two questions: (1) which aspects of music matter most for learning, and (2) which aspects of music matter most for preference formation. Two aspects of music are tested: melody and harmony. In Experiment 1 we tested the learning and liking of a new musical system that is manipulated melodically so that only some of the possible conditional probabilities between successive notes are presented. In Experiment 2 we administered the same tests for learning and liking, but we used a musical system that is manipulated harmonically to eliminate the property of harmonic whole-integer ratios between pitches. Results show that disrupting melody (Experiment 1) disabled the learning of music without disrupting preference formation, whereas disrupting harmony (Experiment 2) does not affect learning and memory but disrupts preference formation. Results point to a possible dissociation between learning and preference in musical knowledge.

We report an investigation of humans' musical learning ability using a novel musical system. We designed an artificial musical system based on the Bohlen-Pierce scale, a scale very different from Western music. Melodies were composed from chord progressions in the new scale by applying the rules of a finite-state grammar. After exposing participants to sets of melodies, we conducted listening tests to assess learning, including recognition tests, generalization tests, and subjective preference ratings. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with 15 melodies 27 times each. Forced choice results showed that participants were able to recognize previously encountered melodies and generalize their knowledge to new melodies, suggesting internalization of the musical grammar. Preference ratings showed no differentiation among familiar, new, and ungrammatical melodies. In Experiment 2, participants were given 10 melodies 40 times each. Results showed superior recognition but unsuccessful generalization. Additionally, preference ratings were significantly higher for familiar melodies. Results from the two experiments suggest that humans can internalize the grammatical structure of a new musical system following exposure to a sufficiently large set size of melodies, but musical preference results from repeated exposure to a small number of items. This dissociation between grammar learning and preference will be further discussed.

KNOWLEDGE OF MUSICAL RULES AND STRUCTURES HASbeen reliably demonstrated in humans of different ages, cultures, and levels of music training, and has been linked to our musical preferences. However, how humans acquire knowledge of and develop preferences for music remains unknown. The present study shows that humans rapidly develop knowledge and preferences when given limited exposure to a new musical system. Using a nontraditional, unfamiliar musical scale (Bohlen-Pierce scale), we created finite-state musical grammars from which we composed sets of melodies.After 25-30 min of passive exposure to the melodies, participants showed extensive learning as characterized by recognition, generalization, and sensitivity to the event frequencies in their given grammar, as well as increased preference for repeated melodies in the new musical system. Results provide evidence that a domain-general statistical learning mechanism may account for much of the human appreciation for music.

Abstract Surviving in a complex and changeable environment relies on the ability to extract probable recurring patterns. Here we report a neurophysiological mechanism for rapid probabilistic learning of a new system of music. Participants listened to different combinations of tones from a previously unheard system of pitches based on the Bohlen-Pierce scale, with chord progressions that form 3:1 ratios in frequency, notably different from 2:1 frequency ratios in existing musical systems. Event-related brain potentials elicited by improbable sounds in the new music system showed emergence over a 1 h period of physiological signatures known to index sound expectation in standard Western music. These indices of expectation learning were eliminated when sound patterns were played equiprobably, and covaried with individual behavioral differences in learning. These results demonstrate that humans use a generalized probability-based perceptual learning mechanism to process novel sound patterns in music.

The present study investigates neural responses to musical phrase boundaries in subjects without formal musical training, with special emphasis on the issue of cultural familiarity (i.e., the relation between the enculturation of the subjects and the cultural style of the presented music). German and Chinese non-musicians listened to Western and Chinese melodies which contained manipulated phrase boundaries while event-related potentials (ERP) were measured. The behavioral data clearly showed that melodic phrase boundary perception is influenced by cultural familiarity. The ERP revealed a series of positive and negative peaks with latencies between 40ms and 550ms relative to the phrase boundary offset, all of which were influenced by the phrase melodic structure type. In contrast, cultural familiarity only influenced phrase boundary processing at longer latencies, reflected by a P3-like component peaking at 280ms. At about 450-600ms post phrase boundary offset, we observed a slightly right-lateralized music closure positive shift (CPS), which has been reported as a marker for phrase boundary processing in musicians in earlier studies. This study demonstrates for the first time that the music CPS can be elicited in non-musicians, suggesting that the underlying phrase boundary processing does not require formal musical training.

The year 2011 saw the fourth in a series of conferences on Neurosciences and Music organized by...

Abstract Abstract A follow-up study of a patient, C.N., with a severe auditory agnosia limited to music is reported. After bilateral temporal lobe damage, C.N., whose cognitive and speech functions are otherwise normal, is totally unable to identify or to experience a sense of familiarity with musical excerpts that were once highly familiar to her. However, she can recognize the lyrics that usually accompany the songs. She can also identify familiar sounds, such as animal cries. Thus, her agnosia appears highly specific to music. The functional nature of her deficit has been investigated through various perceptual tasks. She was initially severely impaired in processing pitch sequential structure but has always enjoyed normal processing of temporal structure. This selective disturbance for sequential pitch information can hardly account for her tune agnosia since processing of pitch variations has dramatically improved over the years. This recovery was not accompanied by any signs of improvement in music recognition, which remains extremely poor. Moreover, the fact that she has never been able to hum tunes from memory argues for a basic memory disturbance. Thus, she was tested here with a series of tests aiming at assessing her memory for familiar and unfamiliar music. The results show that C.N. has now recovered most perceptual skills and that despite a transient ability to exhibit knowledge of familiar music under restricted circumstances, she is markedly impaired at naming a tune and at judging its familiarity, as well as at memorizing familiar as well as novel music. This deficit was found to be not only modality-specific but music-specific as well. The findings suggest the existence of a perceptual memory that is specialized for music and that can be selectively damaged so as to prevent most forms of recognition ability.

Abstract Implicit learning is a core process for the acquisition of a complex, rule-based environment from mere interaction, such as motor action, skill acquisition, or language. A body of evidence suggests that implicit knowledge governs music acquisition and perception in nonmusicians and musicians, and that both expert and nonexpert participants acquire complex melodic, harmonic, and other features from mere exposure. While current findings and computational modeling largely support the learning of chunks, some results indicate learning of more complex structures. Despite the body of evidence, more research is required to support the cross-cultural validity of implicit learning and to show that core and more complex music theoretical features are acquired implicitly.

Abstract The cognition of music, like that of language, is partly rooted in enculturative processes of implicit and incidental learning. Musicians and nonmusicians alike are commonly found to possess detailed implicit knowledge of musical structure which is acquired incidentally through interaction with large samples of music. This paper reports an experiment combining the methodology of artificial grammar learning with musical acquisition of melodic structure. Participants acquired knowledge of grammatical melodic structures under incidental learning conditions in both experimental and untrained control conditions. Subsequent analysis indicates a large effect of unsupervised online learning in the experimental and control group throughout the course of the testing phase suggesting an effective ongoing learning process. Musicians did not outperform nonmusicians, indicating that musical expertise is not advantageous for the learning of a new, unfamiliar melodic system. Confidence ratings suggest that participants became aware of the knowledge guiding their classification performance despite the incidental learning conditions. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This paper takes a step back from what we label ‘problem solving’ approaches to the psychology of music memory and processing. In contrast with generalised expectation theories of music processing, a

Implicit learning (IL) occurs unintentionally. IL of temporal patterns has received minimal attention, and results are mixed regarding whether IL of temporal patterns occurs in the absence of a concurrent ordinal pattern. Two experiments examined the IL of temporal patterns and the conditions under which IL is exhibited. Experiment 1 examined whether uncertainty of the upcoming stimulus identity obscures learning. Based on probabilistic uncertainty, it was hypothesized that stimulus-detection tasks are more sensitive to temporal learning than multiple-alternative forced-choice tasks because of response uncertainty in the latter. Results demonstrated IL of metrical patterns in the stimulus-detection but not the multiple-alternative task. Experiment 2 investigated whether properties of rhythm (i.e., meter) benefit IL using the stimulus-detection task. The metric binding hypothesis states that metrical frameworks guide attention to periodic points in time. Based on the metric binding hypothesis, it was hypothesized that metrical patterns are learned faster than nonmetrical patterns. Results demonstrated learning of metrical and nonmetrical patterns but metrical patterns were not learned more readily than nonmetrical patterns. However, abstraction of a metrical framework was still evident in the metrical condition. The present study shows IL of auditory temporal patterns in the absence of an ordinal pattern.

This study investigates the functional neuroanatomy of harmonic music perception with fMRI. We presented short pieces of Western classical music to nonmusicians. The ending of each piece was systematically manipulated in the following four ways: Standard Cadence (expected resolution), Deceptive Cadence (moderate deviation from expectation), Modulated Cadence (strong deviation from expectation but remaining within the harmonic structure of Western tonal music), and Atonal Cadence (strongest deviation from expectation by leaving the harmonic structure of Western tonal music). Music compared with baseline broadly recruited regions of the bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG) and the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Parametric regressors scaled to the degree of deviation from harmonic expectancy identified regions sensitive to expectancy violation. Areas within the BG were significantly modulated by expectancy violation, indicating a previously unappreciated role in harmonic processing. Expectancy violation also recruited bilateral cortical regions in the IFG and anterior STG, previously associated with syntactic processing in other domains. The posterior STG was not significantly modulated by expectancy. Granger causality mapping found functional connectivity between IFG, anterior STG, posterior STG, and the BG during music perception. Our results imply the IFG, anterior STG, and the BG are recruited for higher-order harmonic processing, whereas the posterior STG is recruited for basic pitch and melodic processing.

Three experiments examined changes in liking and memory for music as a function of number of previous exposures, the ecological validity of the music, and whether the exposure phase required focused or incidental listening. After incidental listening, liking ratings were higher for music heard more often in the exposure phase and this association was stronger as ecological validity increased. After focused listening, liking ratings followed an inverted U-shaped function of exposure for the most ecologically valid stimuli (initial increases followed by decreases), but this curvilinear function was attenuated or nonexistent for less valid stimuli. In general, recognition improved as a function of previous exposure for focused listeners, but the effect was attenuated or absent for incidental listeners.

In four experiments, we examined the effects of exposure to unfamiliar tone sequences on melodic expectancy and memory. In Experiment 1, 30 unfamiliar tone sequences (target sequences) were presented to listeners three times each in random order (exposure phase), and listeners recorded the number of notes in each sequence. Listeners were then presented target and novel sequences and rated how well the final note continued the pattern of notes that preceded it. Novel sequences were identical to target sequences, except for the final note. Ratings were significantly higher for target sequences than for novel sequences, illustrating the influence of exposure on melodic expectancy. Experiment 2 confirmed that without exposure to target sequences, ratings were equivalent for target and novel sequences. In Experiment 3, new listeners were assessed for explicit memory for target sequences following the exposure phase. Recognition of target sequences was above chance, but unrelated to expectancy judgments in Experiment 1. Experiment 4 replicated the exposure effect, using a modified experiment design, and confirmed that the effect is not dependent on explicit memory for sequences. We discuss the idea that melodic expectancies are influenced by implicit memory for recently heard melodic patterns.

The present study investigated the learning of a culturally unfamiliar musical rhythm, leading to the development of temporal expectations, and it explored the potential for generalization across tempi and tasks. With that aim, we adapted the serial reaction time task to examine the learning of temporal structures by an indirect method. The temporal pattern employed was based on a complex interval ratio (2:3) and compared to one based on a simple interval ratio (1:2). In the exposure phase, non-musician participants performed a two-choice speeded discrimination task that required responding by key press to each event of the simple or complex auditory pattern. Participants were not informed about the temporal regularities; their task solely concerned the discrimination task. During exposure (Experiments 1-3), response times decreased over time for both temporal patterns, but particularly for the events following the longer interval of the more complex 2:3 pattern. Exposure further influenced performance in subsequent testing phases, notably the precision of tap timing in a production task (Experiment 2) and temporal expectations in a perception task (Experiment 3). Our findings promote the new paradigm introduced here as a method to investigate the learning of temporal structures.

Deficits for pitch structure processing in congenital amusia has been mostly reported for melodic stimuli and explicit judgments. The present study investigated congenital amusia with harmonic stimuli and a priming task. Amusic and control participants performed a speeded phoneme discrimination task on sung chord sequences. The target phoneme was sung either on a functionally important chord (tonic chord, referred to as “related target”) or a less important one (subdominant chord, referred to as “less-related target”). Correct response times were faster when the target phoneme was sung on tonic chords rather than on subdominant chords, and this effect was less pronounced, albeit significant, in amusic participants. These data report for the first time a deficit in congenital amusia for chord processing, but also provide evidence that, despite this deficit, amusic individuals have internalized sophisticated syntactic-like functions of chords in the Western tonal musical system. This finding suggests that thanks to this musical knowledge, amusic individuals could develop expectancies for musical events, and, presumably, follow the tension-relaxation schemas in Western tonal music, which also influence emotional responses to music.

In the mere-repeated-exposure paradigm, an individual is repeatedly exposed to a particular stimulus object, and the researcher records the individual's emerging preference for that object. Vast literature on the mere-repeated-exposure effect shows it to be a robust phenomenon that cannot be explained by an appeal to recognition memory or perceptual fluency. The effect has been demonstrated across cultures, species, and diverse stimulus domains. It has been obtained even when the stimuli exposed are not accessible to the participants' awareness, and even prenatally. The repeated-exposure paradigm can be regarded as a form of classical conditioning if we assume that the absence of aversive events constitutes the unconditioned stimulus. Empirical research shows that a benign experience of repetition can in and of itself enhance positive affect, and that such affect can become attached not only to stimuli that have been exposed but also to similar stimuli that have not been previously exposed, and to totally distinct stimuli as well. Implications for affect as a fundamental and independent process are discussed in the light of neuroanatomical evidence.

Hierarchical structure with units of different timescales is a key feature of music. For the perception of such structures, the detection of each boundary is crucial. Here, using electroencephalography (EEG), we explore the perception of hierarchical boundaries in music, and test whether musical expertise modifies such processing. Musicians and non-musicians were presented with musical excerpts containing boundaries at three hierarchical levels, including section, phrase and period boundaries. Non-boundary was chosen as a baseline condition. Recordings from musicians showed CPS (closure positive shift) was evoked at all the three boundaries, and their amplitude increased as the hierarchical level became higher, which suggest that musicians could represent music events at different timescales in a hierarchical way. For non-musicians, the CPS was only elicited at the period boundary and undistinguishable negativities were induced at all the three boundaries. The results indicate that a different and less clear way was used by non-musicians in boundary perception. Our findings reveal, for the first time, an ERP correlate of perceiving hierarchical boundaries in music, and show that the phrasing ability could be enhanced by musical expertise.