TY - JOUR

T1 - Musicians show more integrated neural processing of contextually relevant acoustic features

AU - Hansen, Niels Chr

AU - Højlund, Andreas

AU - Møller, Cecilie

AU - Pearce, Marcus

AU - Vuust, Peter

PY - 2022/10

Y1 - 2022/10

N2 - Little is known about expertise-related plasticity of neural mechanisms for auditory feature integration. Here, we contrast two diverging hypotheses that musical expertise is associated with more independent or more integrated predictive processing of acoustic features relevant to melody perception. Mismatch negativity (MMNm) was recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG) from 25 musicians and 25 non-musicians, exposed to interleaved blocks of a complex, melody-like multi-feature paradigm and a simple, oddball control paradigm. In addition to single deviants differing in frequency (F), intensity (I), or perceived location (L), double and triple deviants were included reflecting all possible feature combinations (FI, IL, LF, FIL). Following previous work, early neural processing overlap was approximated in terms of MMNm additivity by comparing empirical MMNms obtained with double and triple deviants to modeled MMNms corresponding to summed constituent single-deviant MMNms. Significantly greater subadditivity was found in musicians compared to non-musicians, specifically for frequency-related deviants in complex, melody-like stimuli. Despite using identical sounds, expertise effects were absent from the simple oddball paradigm. This novel finding supports the integrated processing hypothesis whereby musicians recruit overlapping neural resources facilitating more integrative representations of contextually relevant stimuli such as frequency (perceived as pitch) during melody perception. More generally, these specialized refinements in predictive processing may enable experts to optimally capitalize upon complex, domain-relevant, acoustic cues.

AB - Little is known about expertise-related plasticity of neural mechanisms for auditory feature integration. Here, we contrast two diverging hypotheses that musical expertise is associated with more independent or more integrated predictive processing of acoustic features relevant to melody perception. Mismatch negativity (MMNm) was recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG) from 25 musicians and 25 non-musicians, exposed to interleaved blocks of a complex, melody-like multi-feature paradigm and a simple, oddball control paradigm. In addition to single deviants differing in frequency (F), intensity (I), or perceived location (L), double and triple deviants were included reflecting all possible feature combinations (FI, IL, LF, FIL). Following previous work, early neural processing overlap was approximated in terms of MMNm additivity by comparing empirical MMNms obtained with double and triple deviants to modeled MMNms corresponding to summed constituent single-deviant MMNms. Significantly greater subadditivity was found in musicians compared to non-musicians, specifically for frequency-related deviants in complex, melody-like stimuli. Despite using identical sounds, expertise effects were absent from the simple oddball paradigm. This novel finding supports the integrated processing hypothesis whereby musicians recruit overlapping neural resources facilitating more integrative representations of contextually relevant stimuli such as frequency (perceived as pitch) during melody perception. More generally, these specialized refinements in predictive processing may enable experts to optimally capitalize upon complex, domain-relevant, acoustic cues.

KW - auditory perception

KW - expertise

KW - feature integration

KW - magnetoencephalography

KW - melody

KW - mismatch negativity

KW - music

KW - pitch

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85140617980&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3389/fnins.2022.907540

DO - 10.3389/fnins.2022.907540

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 36312026

AN - SCOPUS:85140617980

VL - 16

JO - Frontiers in Neuroscience

JF - Frontiers in Neuroscience

SN - 1662-4548

M1 - 907540

ER -