Musical training facilitates the neural discrimination of major versus minor chords in 13-year-old children

The major-minor mode dichotomy in music perception

In Western tonal music, major and minor modes are recognized as the primary musical features in eliciting emotional responses. The underlying correlates of this dichotomy in music perception have been extensively investigated through decades of psychological and neuroscientific research, yielding plentiful yet often discordant results that highlight the complexity and individual differences in how these modes are perceived. This variability suggests that a deeper understanding of major-minor mode perception in music is still needed. We present the first comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis, providing both qualitative and quantitative syntheses of major-minor mode perception and its behavioural and neural correlates. The qualitative synthesis includes 70 studies, revealing significant diversity in how the major-minor dichotomy has been empirically investigated. Most studies focused on adults, considered participants' expertise, used real-life musical stimuli, conducted behavioural evaluations, and were predominantly performed with Western listeners. Meta-analyses of behavioural, electroencephalography, and neuroimaging data (37 studies) consistently show that major and minor modes elicit distinct neural and emotional responses, though these differences are heavily influenced by subjective perception. Based on our findings, we propose a framework to describe a Major-Minor Mode(l) of music perception and its correlates, incorporating individual factors such as age, expertise, cultural background, and emotional disorders. Moreover, this work explores the cultural and historical implications of the major-minor dichotomy in music, examining its origins, universality, and emotional associations across both Western and non-Western contexts. By considering individual differences and acoustic characteristics, we contribute to a broader understanding of how musical frameworks develop across cultures. Limitations, implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed, including potential clinical applications for mood regulation and emotional disorders, alongside recommendations for experimental paradigms in investigating major-minor modes.

Mismatch negativity-stimulation paradigms in past and in future

Mismatch negativity (MMN) studies were initiated as part of a well-controlled experimental research tradition with the aim to identify some key principles of auditory processing and memory. During the past two decades, empirical paradigms have moved toward more ecologically valid ones while retaining rigid experimental control. In this paper, I will introduce this development of MMN stimulation paradigms starting from the paradigms used in basic science and then moving to paradigms that have been particularly relevant for studies on music learning and musical expertise. Via these historical and thematic perspectives, I wish to stimulate paradigm development further to meet the demands of naturalistic ecologically valid studies also when using MMN in the context of event-related potential technique that necessarily requires averaging across several stimulus presentations.

Event-Related Potential Evidence for Involuntary Consciousness During Implicit Memory Retrieval

Classical notion claims that a memory is implicit if has nothing to do with consciousness during the information retrieval from storage, or is otherwise explicit. Here, we demonstrate event-related potential evidence for involuntary consciousness during implicit memory retrieval. We designed a passive oddball paradigm for retrieval of implicit memory in which an auditory stream of Shepard tones with musical pitch interval contrasts were delivered to the subjects. These contrasts evoked a mismatch negativity response, which is an event-related potential and a neural marker of implicit memory, in the subjects with long-term musical training, but not in the subjects without. Notably, this response was followed by a salient P3 component which implies involvement of involuntary consciousness in the implicit memory retrieval. Finally, source analysis of the P3 revealed moving dipoles from the frontal lobe to the insula, a brain region closely related to conscious attention. Our study presents a case of involvement of involuntary consciousness in the implicit memory retrieval and suggests a potential challenge to the classical definition of implicit memory.

The autistic brain can process local but not global emotion regularities in facial and musical sequences

Whether autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with a global processing deficit remains controversial. Global integration requires extraction of regularity across various timescales, yet little is known about how individuals with ASD process regularity at local (short timescale) versus global (long timescale) levels. To this end, we used event-related potentials to investigate whether individuals with ASD would show different neural responses to local (within trial) versus global (across trials) emotion regularities extracted from sequential facial expressions; and if so, whether this visual abnormality would generalize to the music (auditory) domain. Twenty individuals with ASD and 21 age- and IQ-matched individuals with typical development participated in this study. At an early processing stage, ASD participants exhibited preserved neural responses to violations of local emotion regularity for both faces and music. At a later stage, however, there was an absence of neural responses in ASD to violations of global emotion regularity for both faces and music. These findings suggest that the autistic brain responses to emotion regularity are modulated by the timescale of sequential stimuli, and provide insight into the neural mechanisms underlying emotional processing in ASD.

Neural Encoding of Pitch Direction Is Enhanced in Musically Trained Children and Is Related to Reading Skills

Musical training in childhood has been linked to enhanced sound encoding at different stages of the auditory processing. In the current study, we used auditory event-related potentials to investigate cortical sound processing in 9- to 15-year-old children (N = 88) with and without musical training. Specifically, we recorded the mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a responses in an oddball paradigm consisting of standard tone pairs with ascending pitch and deviant tone pairs with descending pitch. A subsample of the children (N = 44) also completed a standardized test of reading ability. The musically trained children showed a larger P3a response to the deviant sound pairs. Furthermore, the amplitude of the P3a correlated with a pseudo-word reading test score. These results corroborate previous findings on enhanced sound encoding in musically trained children and are in line with studies suggesting that neural discrimination of spectrotemporal sound patterns is predictive of reading ability.

Neural correlates of accelerated auditory processing in children engaged in music training

Several studies comparing adult musicians and non-musicians have shown that music training is associated with brain differences. It is unknown, however, whether these differences result from lengthy musical training, from pre-existing biological traits, or from social factors favoring musicality. As part of an ongoing 5-year longitudinal study, we investigated the effects of a music training program on the auditory development of children, over the course of two years, beginning at age 6–7. The training was group-based and inspired by El-Sistema. We compared the children in the music group with two comparison groups of children of the same socio-economic background, one involved in sports training, another not involved in any systematic training. Prior to participating, children who began training in music did not differ from those in the comparison groups in any of the assessed measures. After two years, we now observe that children in the music group, but not in the two comparison groups, show an enhanced ability to detect changes in tonal environment and an accelerated maturity of auditory processing as measured by cortical auditory evoked potentials to musical notes. Our results suggest that music training may result in stimulus specific brain changes in school aged children.

Non-expert listeners show decreased heart rate and increased blood pressure (fear bradycardia) in response to atonal music

Previous studies suggested that listening to different types of music may modulate differently psychological mood and physiological responses associated with the induced emotions. In this study the effect of listening to instrumental classical vs. atonal contemporary music was examined in a group of 50 non-expert listeners. The subjects’ heart rate and diastolic and systolic blood pressure values were measured while they listened to music of different style and emotional typologies. Pieces were selected by asking a group of composers and conservatory professors to suggest a list of the most emotional music pieces (from Renaissance to present time). A total of 214 suggestions from 20 respondents were received. Then it was asked them to identify which pieces best induced in the listener feelings of agitation, joy or pathos and the number of suggested pieces per style was computed. Atonal pieces were more frequently indicated as agitating, and tonal pieces as joyful. The presence/absence of tonality in a musical piece did not affect the affective dimension of pathos (being touching). Among the most frequently cited six pieces were selected that were comparable for structure and style, to represent each emotion and style. They were equally evaluated as unfamiliar by an independent group of 10 students of the same cohort) and were then used as stimuli for the experimental session in which autonomic parameters were recorded. Overall, listening to atonal music (independent of the pieces’ emotional characteristics) was associated with a reduced heart rate (fear bradycardia) and increased blood pressure (both diastolic and systolic), possibly reflecting an increase in alertness and attention, psychological tension, and anxiety. This evidence fits with the results of the esthetical assessment showing how, overall, atonal music is perceived as more agitating and less joyful than tonal one.

Experience Changes How Emotion in Music Is Judged: Evidence from Children Listening with Bilateral Cochlear Implants, Bimodal Devices, and Normal Hearing

Children using unilateral cochlear implants abnormally rely on tempo rather than mode cues to distinguish whether a musical piece is happy or sad. This led us to question how this judgment is affected by the type of experience in early auditory development. We hypothesized that judgments of the emotional content of music would vary by the type and duration of access to sound in early life due to deafness, altered perception of musical cues through new ways of using auditory prostheses bilaterally, and formal music training during childhood. Seventy-five participants completed the Montreal Emotion Identification Test. Thirty-three had normal hearing (aged 6.6 to 40.0 years) and 42 children had hearing loss and used bilateral auditory prostheses (31 bilaterally implanted and 11 unilaterally implanted with contralateral hearing aid use). Reaction time and accuracy were measured. Accurate judgment of emotion in music was achieved across ages and musical experience. Musical training accentuated the reliance on mode cues which developed with age in the normal hearing group. Degrading pitch cues through cochlear implant-mediated hearing induced greater reliance on tempo cues, but mode cues grew in salience when at least partial acoustic information was available through some residual hearing in the contralateral ear. Finally, when pitch cues were experimentally distorted to represent cochlear implant hearing, individuals with normal hearing (including those with musical training) switched to an abnormal dependence on tempo cues. The data indicate that, in a western culture, access to acoustic hearing in early life promotes a preference for mode rather than tempo cues which is enhanced by musical training. The challenge to these preferred strategies during cochlear implant hearing (simulated and real), regardless of musical training, suggests that access to pitch cues for children with hearing loss must be improved by preservation of residual hearing and improvements in cochlear implant technology.

Melodic multi-feature paradigm reveals auditory profiles in music-sound encoding

Musical expertise modulates preattentive neural sound discrimination. However, this evidence up to great extent originates from paradigms using very simple stimulation. Here we use a novel melody paradigm (revealing the auditory profile for six sound parameters in parallel) to compare memory-related mismatch negativity (MMN) and attention-related P3a responses recorded from non-musicians and Finnish Folk musicians. MMN emerged in both groups of participants for all sound changes (except for rhythmic changes in non-musicians). In Folk musicians, the MMN was enlarged for mistuned sounds when compared with non-musicians. This is taken to reflect their familiarity with pitch information which is in key position in Finnish folk music when compared with e.g., rhythmic information. The MMN was followed by P3a after timbre changes, rhythm changes, and melody transposition. The MMN and P3a topographies differentiated the groups for all sound changes. Thus, the melody paradigm offers a fast and cost-effective means for determining the auditory profile for music-sound encoding and also, importantly, for probing the effects of musical expertise on it.

Musical experience, auditory perception and reading-related skills in children

BACKGROUND

The relationships between auditory processing and reading-related skills remain poorly understood despite intensive research. Here we focus on the potential role of musical experience as a confounding factor. Specifically we ask whether the pattern of correlations between auditory and reading related skills differ between children with different amounts of musical experience.

METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

Third grade children with various degrees of musical experience were tested on a battery of auditory processing and reading related tasks. Very poor auditory thresholds and poor memory skills were abundant only among children with no musical education. In this population, indices of auditory processing (frequency and interval discrimination thresholds) were significantly correlated with and accounted for up to 13% of the variance in reading related skills. Among children with more than one year of musical training, auditory processing indices were better, yet reading related skills were not correlated with them. A potential interpretation for the reduction in the correlations might be that auditory and reading-related skills improve at different rates as a function of musical training.

CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE

Participants' previous musical training, which is typically ignored in studies assessing the relations between auditory and reading related skills, should be considered. Very poor auditory and memory skills are rare among children with even a short period of musical training, suggesting musical training could have an impact on both. The lack of correlation in the musically trained population suggests that a short period of musical training does not enhance reading related skills of individuals with within-normal auditory processing skills. Further studies are required to determine whether the associations between musical training, auditory processing and memory are indeed causal or whether children with poor auditory and memory skills are less likely to study music and if so, why this is the case.

Music processing similarities between sleeping newborns and alert adults: cause for celebration or concern?

[This corrects the article on p. 492 in vol. 4, PMID: 23966962.].

Newborn infants' auditory system is sensitive to Western music chord categories

Neural encoding of abstract rules in the audition of newborn infants has been recently demonstrated in several studies using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the present study the neural encoding of Western music chords was investigated in newborn infants. Using ERPs, we examined whether the categorizations of major vs. minor and consonance vs. dissonance are present at the level of the change-related mismatch response (MMR). Using an oddball paradigm, root minor, dissonant and inverted major chords were presented in a context of consonant root major chords. The chords were transposed to several different frequency levels, so that the deviant chords did not include a physically deviant frequency that could result in an MMR without categorization. The results show that the newborn infants were sensitive to both dissonant and minor chords but not to inverted major chords in the context of consonant root major chords. While the dissonant chords elicited a large positive MMR, the minor chords elicited a negative MMR. This indicates that the two categories were processed differently. The results suggest newborn infants are sensitive to Western music categorizations, which is consistent with the authors' previous studies in adults and school-aged children.