Are consonant intervals music to their ears? Spontaneous acoustic preferences in a nonhuman primate

Humans find some sounds more pleasing than others; such preferences may underlie our enjoyment of music. To gain insight into the evolutionary origins of these preferences, we explored whether they are present in other animals. We designed a novel method to measure the spontaneous sound preferences of cotton-top tamarins, a species that has been extensively tested for other perceptual abilities. Animals were placed in a V-shaped maze, and their position within the maze controlled their auditory environment. One sound was played when they were in one branch of the maze, and a different sound for the opposite branch; no food was delivered during testing. We used the proportion of time spent in each branch as a measure of preference. The first two experiments were designed as tests of our method. In Experiment 1, we used loud and soft white noise as stimuli; all animals spent most of their time on the side with soft noise. In Experiment 2, tamarins spent more time on the side playing species-specific feeding chirps than on the side playing species-specific distress calls. Together, these two experiments suggest that the method is effective, providing a spontaneous measure of preference. In Experiment 3, however, subjects showed no preference for consonant over dissonant intervals. Finally, tamarins showed no preference in Experiment 4 for a screeching sound (comparable to fingernails on a blackboard) over amplitude-matched white noise. In contrast, humans showed clear preferences for the consonant intervals of Experiment 3 and the white noise of Experiment 4 using the same stimuli and a similar method. We conclude that tamarins' preferences differ qualitatively from those of humans. The preferences that support our capacity for music may, therefore, be unique among the primates, and could be music-specific adaptations.     

Music and driving game performance

This study investigated the effects of the nature of music and a concurrent task on measures of task performance and musical preference. Subjects completed 5 laps of a computer motor racing game whilst listening to either arousing or relatively unarousing music in either the presence or absence of a backward-counting task. Both these manipulations affected performance on the game with arousing music and backward-counting leading to slower lap times than relatively unarousing music and the absence of the backward-counting task. Backward-counting led to lower liking for the music than did the absence of this task. These results support the idea that music and the concurrent task competed for a limited processing resource. The results also indicated that liking for the music was positively related to task performance, and in conjunction these findings seem to suggest a direct link between music and the listening context.     

中国象棋经验棋手与新手的知觉差异:来自眼动的证据

为探讨中国象棋领域内的专长效应及象棋专长的知觉编码优势,研究采用中国象棋棋局为实验材料,对比了经验棋手和新手在观看象棋棋局时视觉搜索、变化觉察和对棋盘的记忆。实验1呈现真实棋局和随机棋局,要求被试观看5秒后复盘,结果发现经验棋手的复盘正确率高于新手;经验棋手注视棋盘的眼跳幅度和瞳孔直径更大;经验棋手更多注视棋子间而不是棋子本身。实验2采用移动窗口范式控制了观看棋盘时视野大小,结果发现经验棋手在副中央凹呈现时复盘正确率更高,而新手不受视野大小的影响。实验3采用闪烁范式要求棋手觉察变化的棋子,结果发现经验棋手的觉察速度和正确率都优于新手;而且经验棋手在报告变化前就利用中央凹和副中央凹注视到了变化的棋子。结论认为:中国象棋与国际象棋类似,也存在专长的知觉编码优势效应;经验棋手不仅对棋盘记忆更好,而且可以利用存贮的组块和长期练习经验选择性加工棋盘结构信息,利用副中央凹提取信息,具有更大的知觉广度。研究为象棋专家可以利用副中央凹加工棋盘及具有更强的知觉编码能力提供了直接的证据。     

Liking, Arousal Potential, and the Emotions Expressed by Music

Previous research indicates that the specific emotions expressed by stimuli may be closely associated with their pleasing and arousing qualities, and this parallels psychomusicological research on the relationship between these two stimulus qualities. In light of this, the present research contends that the emotions expressed by musical stimuli are associated with their pleasing and arousing qualities. Sixty subjects rated 32 musical excerpts on 11-point scales representing the expression of eight specific emotions. Statistical analyses showed that these emotion ratings were predictable on the basis of 60 additional subjects' ratings of each excerpt in terms of 'liking' and 'arousal potential'. This indicates that ratings of liking and arousal potential are essentially similar to ratings of the specific emotions expressed by musical stimuli. These results are discussed in terms of the relationship between liking and arousal potential, and the implications that this may have for research on affective processes.     

Music therapy enhances preterm infant’s signs of engagement and sustains maternal singing in the NICU

Hospitalized preterm infants are exposed to stressful stimuli and early parental separation, which can undermine their long-term development and mother-infant bonding. Family-centered music therapy can enable positive mother-infant interactions, mediated by maternal infant-directed singing. This study aimed to investigate the effects of music therapy on preterm infant’s signs of engagement, namely Eye Opening (EO) and Smiling (SM), and maternal vocalizations. Participants were 30 mother-preterm infant dyads in a Brazilian Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), divided into a Music Therapy Group (MTG) and a Comparison Group (CG). The MTG participated in 6 sessions of the Music Therapy Intervention for the Mother-Preterm Infant Dyad (MUSIP), with the aim of supporting maternal singing with the infant. Prior to discharge, all mothers were filmed during a Non-singing (NS) and Singing (S) interactional condition; in the S condition, mothers were explicitly asked to address their infants by singing. Results of video and audio analysis showed that infants in the MTG displayed greater Eye Opening (EO) frequency compared to CG, but only when they were in an initial awake state at test, suggesting that music therapy can potentialize infants’ alertness, by increasing their disposition and chances of being engaged in the interaction with the mother. Non-religious mothers appeared to sing significantly more in the MTG than in the CG. These preliminary findings indicate that music therapy in the NICU could promote infant’s signs of engagement during interactions and can sustain maternal singing, especially with non-religious mothers in Brazil.     

The influence of music genres on the driving behaviour of young drivers and their visual scanning of the environment

Recently, distractions have been recognized as a significant risk factor in road traffic. This simulator study aims to investigate how different music genres affect the driving behaviour of young drivers and their visual scanning of the environment in urban settings. The genres considered were Croatian pop, foreign pop, classical music, metal, and Balkan folk music, while on one road section there was no music. The research sample consisted of 61 participants (44 males and 17 females) with a mean age of 24.58 years and a mean driving experience of 5.25 years. The influence of music on the drivers’ behaviour was analysed on the basis of the data collected from the driving simulator, eye tracking glasses, and structured observation during driving sessions. It was found that the highest average speed (around 60 km/h) was recorded while the participants were listening to Balkan folk and metal music, while other music genres, as well as the “no music” condition, influenced driving speed in a similar way to one another and the participants drove at 50 km/h on average. Furthermore, the results suggest that the music genre also affects how drivers visually scan the environment (the number of gazes classified as fixations and number of road signs looked at). The findings obtained may be used in road safety work and practical recommendations and further research are discussed.     

Enhanced divergent thinking and creativity in musicians: a behavioral and near-infrared spectroscopy study

Empirical studies of creativity have focused on the importance of divergent thinking, which supports generating novel solutions to loosely defined problems. The present study examined creativity and frontal cortical activity in an externally-validated group of creative individuals (trained musicians) and demographically matched control participants, using behavioral tasks and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Experiment 1 examined convergent and divergent thinking with respect to intelligence and personality. Experiment 2 investigated frontal oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin concentration changes during divergent thinking with NIRS. Results of Experiment 1 indicated enhanced creativity in musicians who also showed increased verbal ability and schizotypal personality but their enhanced divergent thinking remained robust after co-varying out these two factors. In Experiment 2, NIRS showed greater bilateral frontal activity in musicians during divergent thinking compared with nonmusicians. Overall, these results suggest that creative individuals are characterized by enhanced divergent thinking, which is supported by increased frontal cortical activity.     

Learning harmony: the role of serial statistics

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.     

Memory for Music in Alzheimer’s Disease: Unforgettable?

The notion that memory for music can be preserved in patients with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) has been raised by a number of case studies. In this paper, we review the current research examining musical memory in patients with AD. In keeping with models of memory described in the non-musical domain, we propose that various forms of musical memory exist, and may be differentially impaired in AD, reflecting the pattern of neuropathological changes associated with the condition. Our synthesis of this literature reveals a dissociation between explicit and implicit musical memory functions. Implicit, specifically procedural musical memory, or the ability to play a musical instrument, can be spared in musicians with AD. In contrast, explicit musical memory, or the recognition of familiar or unfamiliar melodies, is typically impaired. Thus, the notion that music is unforgettable in AD is not wholly supported. Rather, it appears that the ability to play a musical instrument may be unforgettable in some musicians with AD.     

音乐能增强我们的免疫力吗——音乐的心理神经免疫学效应研究的新进展

近十年以来,音乐能够给人类带来健康的研究越来越多。其中,音乐对人免疫系统的影响属于较新的范畴。本文以音乐心理神经免疫学的视角,从内分泌反应、免疫反应以及免疫系统三个方面,探讨音乐是怎样增强人体免疫力的。音乐对于人体的生物学影响已经得到了公认,但是音乐的心理神经免疫学还是需要更多的量化证明,关于此方面的进一步的研究可能影响到我们医疗保健的整体模型。