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Crespo-Bojorque P, Cauvet E, Pallier C, Toro JM. Recognizing structure in novel tunes: differences between human and rats. Anim Cogn 2024; 27:17. [PMID: 38429431 PMCID: PMC10907461 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01848-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2023] [Revised: 10/27/2023] [Accepted: 11/08/2023] [Indexed: 03/03/2024]
Abstract
A central feature in music is the hierarchical organization of its components. Musical pieces are not a simple concatenation of chords, but are characterized by rhythmic and harmonic structures. Here, we explore if sensitivity to music structure might emerge in the absence of any experience with musical stimuli. For this, we tested if rats detect the difference between structured and unstructured musical excerpts and compared their performance with that of humans. Structured melodies were excerpts of Mozart's sonatas. Unstructured melodies were created by the recombination of fragments of different sonatas. We trained listeners (both human participants and Long-Evans rats) with a set of structured and unstructured excerpts, and tested them with completely novel excerpts they had not heard before. After hundreds of training trials, rats were able to tell apart novel structured from unstructured melodies. Human listeners required only a few trials to reach better performance than rats. Interestingly, such performance was increased in humans when tonality changes were included, while it decreased to chance in rats. Our results suggest that, with enough training, rats might learn to discriminate acoustic differences differentiating hierarchical music structures from unstructured excerpts. More importantly, the results point toward species-specific adaptations on how tonality is processed.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Elodie Cauvet
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, INSERM, CEA, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin Center, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France
- DIS Study Abroad in Scandinavia, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Christophe Pallier
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, INSERM, CEA, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin Center, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France
| | - Juan M Toro
- Universitat Pompeu Fabra, C. Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27, CP. 08005, Barcelona, Spain.
- Institució Catalana de Recerca I Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain.
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Bianco R, Zuk NJ, Bigand F, Quarta E, Grasso S, Arnese F, Ravignani A, Battaglia-Mayer A, Novembre G. Neural encoding of musical expectations in a non-human primate. Curr Biol 2024; 34:444-450.e5. [PMID: 38176416 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2023] [Revised: 10/26/2023] [Accepted: 12/07/2023] [Indexed: 01/06/2024]
Abstract
The appreciation of music is a universal trait of humankind.1,2,3 Evidence supporting this notion includes the ubiquity of music across cultures4,5,6,7 and the natural predisposition toward music that humans display early in development.8,9,10 Are we musical animals because of species-specific predispositions? This question cannot be answered by relying on cross-cultural or developmental studies alone, as these cannot rule out enculturation.11 Instead, it calls for cross-species experiments testing whether homologous neural mechanisms underlying music perception are present in non-human primates. We present music to two rhesus monkeys, reared without musical exposure, while recording electroencephalography (EEG) and pupillometry. Monkeys exhibit higher engagement and neural encoding of expectations based on the previously seeded musical context when passively listening to real music as opposed to shuffled controls. We then compare human and monkey neural responses to the same stimuli and find a species-dependent contribution of two fundamental musical features-pitch and timing12-in generating expectations: while timing- and pitch-based expectations13 are similarly weighted in humans, monkeys rely on timing rather than pitch. Together, these results shed light on the phylogeny of music perception. They highlight monkeys' capacity for processing temporal structures beyond plain acoustic processing, and they identify a species-dependent contribution of time- and pitch-related features to the neural encoding of musical expectations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roberta Bianco
- Neuroscience of Perception & Action Lab, Italian Institute of Technology, Viale Regina Elena 291, 00161 Rome, Italy.
| | - Nathaniel J Zuk
- Department of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University, 50 Shakespeare Street, Nottingham NG1 4FQ, UK
| | - Félix Bigand
- Neuroscience of Perception & Action Lab, Italian Institute of Technology, Viale Regina Elena 291, 00161 Rome, Italy
| | - Eros Quarta
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Stefano Grasso
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Flavia Arnese
- Neuroscience of Perception & Action Lab, Italian Institute of Technology, Viale Regina Elena 291, 00161 Rome, Italy
| | - Andrea Ravignani
- Comparative Bioacoustics Group, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, 6525 XD Nijmegen, the Netherlands; Center for Music in the Brain, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University & The Royal Academy of Music, Universitetsbyen 3, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark; Department of Human Neurosciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Alexandra Battaglia-Mayer
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Giacomo Novembre
- Neuroscience of Perception & Action Lab, Italian Institute of Technology, Viale Regina Elena 291, 00161 Rome, Italy.
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Crespo-Bojorque P, Celma-Miralles A, Toro JM. Detecting surface changes in a familiar tune: exploring pitch, tempo and timbre. Anim Cogn 2022; 25:951-960. [PMID: 35138480 PMCID: PMC9334415 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01604-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2021] [Revised: 01/12/2022] [Accepted: 01/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Humans recognize a melody independently of whether it is played on a piano or a violin, faster or slower, or at higher or lower frequencies. Much of the way in which we engage with music relies in our ability to normalize across these surface changes. Despite the uniqueness of our music faculty, there is the possibility that key aspects in music processing emerge from general sensitivities already present in other species. Here we explore whether other animals react to surface changes in a tune. We familiarized the animals (Long–Evans rats) with the “Happy Birthday” tune on a piano. We then presented novel test items that included changes in pitch (higher and lower octave transpositions), tempo (double and half the speed) and timbre (violin and piccolo). While the rats responded differently to the familiar and the novel version of the tune when it was played on novel instruments, they did not respond differently to the original song and its novel versions that included octave transpositions and changes in tempo.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Alexandre Celma-Miralles
- Universitat Pompeu Fabra, C. Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27, 08005, Barcelona, Spain.,Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus/Aalborg, Aarhus University, Universitetsbyen, 3, 8000, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Juan M Toro
- Universitat Pompeu Fabra, C. Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27, 08005, Barcelona, Spain. .,Institució Catalana de Recerca I Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Pg. Lluís Companys, 23, 08019, Barcelona, Spain.
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Bouwer FL, Nityananda V, Rouse AA, ten Cate C. Rhythmic abilities in humans and non-human animals: a review and recommendations from a methodological perspective. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2021; 376:20200335. [PMID: 34420380 PMCID: PMC8380979 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0335] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/27/2021] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Rhythmic behaviour is ubiquitous in both human and non-human animals, but it is unclear whether the cognitive mechanisms underlying the specific rhythmic behaviours observed in different species are related. Laboratory experiments combined with highly controlled stimuli and tasks can be very effective in probing the cognitive architecture underlying rhythmic abilities. Rhythmic abilities have been examined in the laboratory with explicit and implicit perception tasks, and with production tasks, such as sensorimotor synchronization, with stimuli ranging from isochronous sequences of artificial sounds to human music. Here, we provide an overview of experimental findings on rhythmic abilities in human and non-human animals, while critically considering the wide variety of paradigms used. We identify several gaps in what is known about rhythmic abilities. Many bird species have been tested on rhythm perception, but research on rhythm production abilities in the same birds is lacking. By contrast, research in mammals has primarily focused on rhythm production rather than perception. Many experiments also do not differentiate between possible components of rhythmic abilities, such as processing of single temporal intervals, rhythmic patterns, a regular beat or hierarchical metrical structures. For future research, we suggest a careful choice of paradigm to aid cross-species comparisons, and a critical consideration of the multifaceted abilities that underlie rhythmic behaviour. This article is part of the theme issue 'Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fleur L. Bouwer
- Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 7, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC), University of Amsterdam, PO Box 94242, 1090 CE Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, PO Box 15900, 1001 NK Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Vivek Nityananda
- Biosciences Institute, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, Henry Wellcome Building, Framlington Place, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4HH, UK
| | - Andrew A. Rouse
- Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA
| | - Carel ten Cate
- Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC), Leiden University, PO Box 9505, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
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Toro JM, Crespo-Bojorque P. Arc-shaped pitch contours facilitate item recognition in non-human animals. Cognition 2021; 213:104614. [PMID: 33558018 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104614] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2020] [Revised: 01/11/2021] [Accepted: 01/26/2021] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
Acoustic changes linked to natural prosody are a key source of information about the organization of language. Both human infants and adults readily take advantage of such changes to discover and memorize linguistic patterns. Do they so because our brain is efficiently wired to specifically process linguistic stimuli? Or are we co-opting for language acquisition purposes more general principles that might be inherited from our animal ancestors? Here, we address this question by exploring if other species profit from prosody to better process acoustic sequences. More specifically, we test whether arc-shaped pitch contours defining natural prosody might facilitate item recognition and memorization in rats. In two experiments, we presented to the rats nonsense words with flat, natural, inverted and random prosodic contours. We observed that the animals correctly recognized the familiarization words only when arc-shaped pitch contours were implemented over them. Our results suggest that other species might also benefit from prosody for the memorization of items in a sequence. Such capacity seems to be rooted in general principles of how biological sounds are produced and processed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Juan M Toro
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Pg. Lluis Companys, 23, 08019 Barcelona, Spain; Universitat Pompeu Fabra, C. Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27, 08005 Barcelona, Spain.
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