Neural dynamics of predictive timing and motor engagement in music listening

From neural activity to behavioral engagement: temporal dynamics as their "common currency" during music

The human cortex is highly dynamic as manifest in its vast ongoing temporal repertoire. Similarly, human behavior is also variable over time with, for instance, fluctuating response times. How the brain's ongoing dynamics relates to the fluctuating dynamics of behavior such as emotions remains yet unclear, though. We measure median frequency (MF) in a dynamic way (D-MF) to investigate the dynamics in both electroencephalography (EEG) neural activity and the subjects' continuous behavioral assessment of their perceived emotional engagement changes during five different music pieces. Our main findings are: (i) significant differences in the frequency dynamics, e.g., D-MF, of the subjects' behavioral engagement ratings between the five music pieces, (ii) significant differences in the, e.g., D-MF, of the music pieces' EEG-based neural activity, and (iii) there is a unidirectional relationship from neural to behavioral during the five music pieces as measured through correlation and Granger causality between their respective D-MF's. Together, we demonstrate that neural dynamics relates to behavioral dynamics through the shared fluctuations in their dynamics. This highlights the key role of dynamics in connecting neural and behavioral activity as their "common currency."

Musical neurodynamics

A great deal of research in the neuroscience of music suggests that neural oscillations synchronize with musical stimuli. Although neural synchronization is a well-studied mechanism underpinning expectation, it has even more far-reaching implications for music. In this Perspective, we survey the literature on the neuroscience of music, including pitch, harmony, melody, tonality, rhythm, metre, groove and affect. We describe how fundamental dynamical principles based on known neural mechanisms can explain basic aspects of music perception and performance, as summarized in neural resonance theory. Building on principles such as resonance, stability, attunement and strong anticipation, we propose that people anticipate musical events not through predictive neural models, but because brain-body dynamics physically embody musical structure. The interaction of certain kinds of sounds with ongoing pattern-forming dynamics results in patterns of perception, action and coordination that we collectively experience as music. Statistically universal structures may have arisen in music because they correspond to stable states of complex, pattern-forming dynamical systems. This analysis of empirical findings from the perspective of neurodynamic principles sheds new light on the neuroscience of music and what makes music powerful.

Predictive coding and dimension-selective attention enhance the lateralization of spoken language processing

Hemispheric lateralization in speech and language processing exemplifies functional brain specialization. Seminal work in patients with left hemisphere damage highlighted the left-hemispheric dominance in language functions. However, speech processing is not confined to the left hemisphere. Hence, some researchers associate lateralization with auditory processing asymmetries: slow temporal and fine spectral acoustic information is preferentially processed in right auditory regions, while faster temporal information is primarily handled by left auditory regions. Other scholars posit that lateralization relates more to linguistic processing, particularly for speech and speech-like stimuli. We argue that these seemingly distinct accounts are interdependent. Linguistic analysis of speech relies on top-down processes, such as predictive coding and dimension-selective auditory attention, which enhance lateralized processing by engaging left-lateralized sensorimotor networks. Our review highlights that lateralization is weaker for simple sounds, stronger for speech-like sounds, and strongest for meaningful speech. Evidence shows that predictive speech processing and selective attention enhance lateralization. We illustrate that these top-down processes rely on left-lateralized sensorimotor networks and provide insights into the role of these networks in speech processing.

Topography of Functional Organization of Beat Perception in Human Premotor Cortex: Causal Evidence From a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Study

Humans can flexibly extract a regular beat from complex rhythmic auditory patterns, as often occurs in music. Contemporary models of beat perception suggest that the premotor cortex (PMC) and the supplementary motor area (SMA) are integral to this process. However, how these motor planning regions actively contribute to beat perception, along with any potential hemispheric specialization, remains open questions. Therefore, following the validation of stimuli in a behavioral experiment (Experiment I, N = 29, 12 males, mean age = 23.8 ± 0.7 years), we employed transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to test the causal contribution of these regions to beat perception. In Experiment II (N = 40, 16 males, mean age = 23.2 ± 2.37 years), we applied online repetitive TMS (rTMS) over a defined grid encompassing the right rostral and caudal dPMC, SMA, and pre-SMA, and a sham control location. Results showed that stimulation of the caudal portion of right dPMC selectively affected beat perception compared to all other regions. In Experiment III (preregistered, N = 42, 17 males, mean age = 23.5 ± 2.61 years), we tested the lateralization of this contribution by applying rTMS over right and left caudal dPMC. Our results showed that only stimulation over right, but not left, dPMC modulated beat perception. Finally, across all three experiments, individual differences in musical reward predicted beat perception sensitivity. Together, these results support the causal role of the right dPMC in generating internal action predictions and perceptual expectations regarding ongoing sequential events, in line with recent models emphasizing the role of the dorsal auditory stream in beat-based temporal perception. These findings offer valuable insights into the functional organization of the premotor cortex, contributing to a deeper understanding of the neural mechanisms involved in human rhythm perception.

Moving rhythmically can facilitate naturalistic speech perception in a noisy environment

The motor system is known to process temporal information, and moving rhythmically while listening to a melody can improve auditory processing. In three interrelated behavioural experiments, we demonstrate that this effect translates to speech processing. Motor priming improves the efficiency of subsequent naturalistic speech-in-noise processing under specific conditions. (i) Moving rhythmically at the lexical rate (~1.8 Hz) significantly improves subsequent speech processing compared to moving at other rates, such as the phrasal or syllabic rates. (ii) The impact of such rhythmic motor priming is not influenced by whether it is self-generated or triggered by an auditory beat. (iii) Overt lexical vocalization, regardless of its semantic content, also enhances the efficiency of subsequent speech processing. These findings provide evidence for the functional role of the motor system in processing the temporal dynamics of naturalistic speech.

The Effect of Perceived Groove in Music on Effective Brain Connectivity during Cycling: An fNIRS Study

INTRODUCTION

Perceived groove, a complex and integrated musical characteristic, is considered a core factor in inducing synchronization between movement and music. This study aimed to use functional near-infrared spectroscopy to explore the effective connectivity (EC) changes among brain regions during cycling activities under different perceived groove conditions.

METHODS

In a randomized crossover design, 18 university students performed 3-min cycling tasks under high (HG) and low (LG) perceived groove music conditions. Revolutions per minute, coefficient of variation of pedaling cadence, and sensorimotor coupling index were measured. Granger causality analyses were performed on the functional near-infrared spectroscopy data from the cycling task to obtain EC matrices at the brain region and channel (Ch) levels.

RESULTS

The revolution per minute was significantly higher, and coefficient of variation of pedaling cadence and sensorimotor coupling index were significantly lower in HG than in LG. The EC values of the Brodmann area (BA) 8→the left prefrontal cortex (lPFC), the superior portion of BA 6 (BA 6_Sup)→lPFC, and BA 1-3→lPFC were significantly higher in HG than in LG. Channel analyses indicated that the EC values of Ch 14→Ch 9, Ch 41→Ch 9, Ch 14→Ch 10, Ch 41→Ch 10, Ch 31→Ch 10, and Ch 35→Ch 23 were significantly higher in HG than in LG. Correlation analysis revealed that the EC values of the channels included in BA 6_Sup→lPFC were significantly correlated with cycling performance metrics.

CONCLUSIONS

The EC changes from BA 6_Sup to lPFC may play a critical role in the process through which perceived groove affects the synchronization of cycling to music.

Registered Report: Replication and Extension of

Cognitive neuroscience research has attempted to disentangle stimulus-driven processing from conscious perceptual processing for decades. Some prior evidence for neural processing of perceived musical beat (periodic pulse) may be confounded by stimulus-driven neural activity. However, one study used frequency tagging, which measures electrical brain activity at frequencies present in a stimulus, to show increased brain activity at imagery-related frequencies when listeners imagined a metrical pattern while listening to an isochronous auditory stimulus (Nozaradan et al., 2011) in a manner that controlled for stimulus factors. It is unclear though whether this represents repeatable evidence for conscious perception of beat and whether the effect is influenced by relevant music experience, such as music and dance training. This registered report details the results of 13 independent conceptual replications of Nozaradan et al. (2011), all using the same vetted protocol. Listeners performed the same imagery tasks as in Nozaradan et al. (2011), with the addition of a behavioral task on each trial to measure conscious perception. Meta-analyses examined the effect of imagery condition, revealing smaller raw effect sizes (Binary: 0.03 μV, Ternary: 0.03 μV) than in the original study (Binary: 0.12 μV, Ternary: 0.20 μV) with no moderating effects of music or dance training. The difference in estimated effects sizes (this study: n = 152, η p 2 =.03 - .04; 2011 study: n = 8, η p 2 =.62 - .76) suggests that large sample sizes may be required to reliably observe these effects, which challenges the use of frequency tagging as a method to study (neural correlates of) beat perception. Furthermore, a binary logistic regression on individual trials revealed that only neural activity at the stimulus frequency predicted performance on the imagery-related task; contrary to our hypothesis, the neural activity at the imagery-related frequency was not a significant predictor. We discuss possible explanations for discrepancies between these findings and the original study and implications of the extensions provided by this registered report.

The presence of drum and bass modulates responses in the auditory dorsal pathway and mirror-related regions to pop songs

In pop music, drum and bass components are crucial for generating the desire to move one's body, primarily due to their role in delivering salient metrical cues. This study explored how the presence of drum and bass influences neural responses to unfamiliar pop songs. Using AI-based algorithms, we isolated the drum and bass components from the musical excerpts, creating two additional versions: one that included only the drum and bass (excluding vocals and other instruments), and another that excluded the drum and bass (consisting solely of vocals and other instruments). Twenty-five participants were subjected to fMRI scans while listening to these musical stimuli. Analysis of fMRI data indicated that the removal of drum and bass led to increased activity in the auditory dorsal pathway, suggesting that the absence of these metrical cues demands greater cognitive effort to process the beats. In contrast, the version featuring only drum and bass elicited stronger activation in frontal regions associated with mirror properties, including the right ventral premotor cortex (extending into the inferior frontal gyrus) and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, compared to the original version. Overall, this study contributed insights into the foundational role of drum and bass in imparting metrical salience to pop songs, enriching our understanding of listeners' sensorimotor processing of musical genres that prominently feature these two elements.

Neural encoding of melodic expectations in music across EEG frequency bands

The human brain tracks regularities in the environment and extrapolates these to predict future events. Prior work on music cognition suggests that low-frequency (1-8 Hz) brain activity encodes melodic predictions beyond the stimulus acoustics. Building on this work, we aimed to disentangle the frequency-specific neural dynamics linked to melodic prediction uncertainty (modelled as entropy) and prediction error (modelled as surprisal) for temporal (note onset) and content (note pitch) information. By using multivariate temporal response function (TRF) models, we re-analysed the electroencephalogram (EEG) from 20 subjects (10 musicians) who listened to Western tonal music. Our results show that melodic expectation metrics improve the EEG reconstruction accuracy in all frequency bands below the gamma range (< 30 Hz). Crucially, we found that entropy contributed more strongly to the reconstruction accuracy enhancement compared to surprisal in all frequency bands. Additionally, we found that the encoding of temporal, but not content, information metrics was not limited to low frequencies, rather it extended to higher frequencies (> 8 Hz). An analysis of the TRF weights revealed that the temporal predictability of a note (entropy of note onset) may be encoded in the delta- (1-4 Hz) and beta-band (12-30 Hz) brain activity prior to the stimulus, suggesting that these frequency bands associate with temporal predictions. Strikingly, we also revealed that melodic expectations selectively enhanced EEG reconstruction accuracy in the beta band for musicians, and in the alpha band (8-12 Hz) for non-musicians, suggesting that musical expertise influences the neural dynamics underlying predictive processing in music cognition.

Null effect of perceived drum pattern complexity on the experience of groove

There is a broad consensus in groove research that the experience of groove, understood as a pleasurable urge to move in response to music, is to some extent related to the complexity of the rhythm. Specifically, music with medium rhythmic complexity has been found to motivate greater urge to move compared to low or high complexity music (inverted-U hypothesis). Studies that confirmed the inverted-U hypothesis usually based their measure of complexity on the rhythmic phenomenon of syncopation, where rhythms with more and/or stronger syncopation are considered to be more complex than less syncopated rhythms. However, syncopation is not the same as complexity and represents only one rhythmic device that makes music complex. This study attempts the verification of the inverted-U hypothesis independently from syncopation. It uses a new stimulus set of forty idiomatic popular music drum patterns whose perceptual complexity was measured experimentally in a previous study. The current study reports the results of a listening experiment with n = 179 participants, in which the inverted-U hypothesis was not confirmed. Complexity did not have any significant effect on listeners' urge to move (p = 834). Results are discussed in the context of the psychological model of musical groove, which offers a nuance to this null result: simple drum patterns motivate listeners to dance because they convey metric clarity; complex patterns invite dancing because they are interesting. Yet, overall, the urge to move does not seem to depend on complexity, at least in the case of idiomatic drum patterns that are typically encountered in the Western popular music repertoire.

The social and neural bases of creative movement: workshop overview

This editorial provides a background and overview of the interdisciplinary workshop on "The Social and Neural Bases of Creative Movement," bringing together dancers, choreographers, musicians, artists, kinesiologists and neuroscientists to share perspectives and develop a common language to define and explore the relationship between dance and the brain.

Neural oscillations suggest periodicity encoding during auditory beat processing in the premature brain

When exposed to rhythmic patterns with temporal regularity, adults exhibit an inherent ability to extract and anticipate an underlying sequence of regularly spaced beats, which is internally constructed, as beats are experienced even when no events occur at beat positions (e.g., in the case of rests). Perception of rhythm and synchronization to periodicity is indispensable for development of cognitive functions, social interaction, and adaptive behavior. We evaluated neural oscillatory activity in premature newborns (n = 19, mean age, 32 ± 2.59 weeks gestational age) during exposure to an auditory rhythmic sequence, aiming to identify early traces of periodicity encoding and rhythm processing through entrainment of neural oscillations at this stage of neurodevelopment. The rhythmic sequence elicited a systematic modulation of alpha power, synchronized to expected beat locations coinciding with both tones and rests, and independent of whether the beat was preceded by tone or rest. In addition, the periodic alpha-band fluctuations reached maximal power slightly before the corresponding beat onset times. Together, our results show neural encoding of periodicity in the premature brain involving neural oscillations in the alpha range that are much faster than the beat tempo, through alignment of alpha power to the beat tempo, consistent with observations in adults on predictive processing of temporal regularities in auditory rhythms. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: In response to the presented rhythmic pattern, systematic modulations of alpha power showed that the premature brain extracted the temporal regularity of the underlying beat. In contrast to evoked potentials, which are greatly reduced when there is no sounds event, the modulation of alpha power occurred for beats coinciding with both tones and rests in a predictive way. The findings provide the first evidence for the neural coding of periodicity in auditory rhythm perception before the age of term.

Complex dynamic behavioral transitions in auditory neurons induced by chaotic activity

Chaotic sequences are widely used in secure communication due to their high randomness. Chaotic resonance (CR) refers to the resonant response of a system to weak signals induced by chaotic activity, but its practical application remains limited. This study designs a simplified FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) auditory neuron model by simulating the physiological activities of auditory neurons and considering the combined stimulation of chaotic activity and sound signals. It is found that the neuron dynamics depend on both external sound stimuli and chaotic current intensity. Chaotic currents induce spikes in the neuron output sequence through CR, and the spikes become more frequent with increasing current intensity, eventually leading to a chaotic state regardless of the initial state. However, the sensitivity of the initial value of this chaotic sequence shifts to the chaotic current excitation system. The injection of chaotic currents can reduce the system's average Hamiltonian energy under certain conditions. By measuring the complexity of the generated sequences, we find that the addition of chaotic currents can enhance the complexity of the original sequences, and the enhancement ability increases with the intensity. This provides a new approach to enhance the complexity of original chaotic sequences. Moreover, different chaotic currents can induce different chaotic sequences with varying abilities to enhance the complexity of the original sequences. We hope our work can contribute to secure communication.

Auditory and motor priming of metric structure improves understanding of degraded speech

Speech comprehension is enhanced when preceded (or accompanied) by a congruent rhythmic prime reflecting the metrical sentence structure. Although these phenomena have been described for auditory and motor primes separately, their respective and synergistic contribution has not been addressed. In this experiment, participants performed a speech comprehension task on degraded speech signals that were preceded by a rhythmic prime that could be auditory, motor or audiomotor. Both auditory and audiomotor rhythmic primes facilitated speech comprehension speed. While the presence of a purely motor prime (unpaced tapping) did not globally benefit speech comprehension, comprehension accuracy scaled with the regularity of motor tapping. In order to investigate inter-individual variability, participants also performed a Spontaneous Speech Synchronization test. The strength of the estimated perception-production coupling correlated positively with overall speech comprehension scores. These findings are discussed in the framework of the dynamic attending and active sensing theories.

Oscillatory attention in groove

Attention is not constant but rather fluctuates over time and these attentional fluctuations may prioritize the processing of certain events over others. In music listening, the pleasurable urge to move to music (termed 'groove' by music psychologists) offers a particularly convenient case study of oscillatory attention because it engenders synchronous and oscillatory movements which also vary predictably with stimulus complexity. In this study, we simultaneously recorded pupillometry and scalp electroencephalography (EEG) from participants while they listened to drumbeats of varying complexity that they rated in terms of groove afterwards. Using the intertrial phase coherence of the beat frequency, we found that while subjects were listening, their pupil activity became entrained to the beat of the drumbeats and this entrained attention persisted in the EEG even as subjects imagined the drumbeats continuing through subsequent silent periods. This entrainment in both the pupillometry and EEG worsened with increasing rhythmic complexity, indicating poorer sensory precision as the beat became more obscured. Additionally, sustained pupil dilations revealed the expected, inverted U-shaped relationship between rhythmic complexity and groove ratings. Taken together, this work bridges oscillatory attention to rhythmic complexity in relation to musical groove.

The Motor of Time: Coupling Action to Temporally Predictable Events Heightens Perception

Timing and motor function share neural circuits and dynamics, which underpin their close and synergistic relationship. For instance, the temporal predictability of a sensory event optimizes motor responses to that event. Knowing when an event is likely to occur lowers response thresholds, leading to faster and more efficient motor behavior though in situations of response conflict can induce impulsive and inappropriate responding. In turn, through a process of active sensing, coupling action to temporally predictable sensory input enhances perceptual processing. Action not only hones perception of the event's onset or duration, but also boosts sensory processing of its non-temporal features such as pitch or shape. The effects of temporal predictability on motor behavior and sensory processing involve motor and left parietal cortices and are mediated by changes in delta and beta oscillations in motor areas of the brain.