Classical conditioned responses to absent tones.
BACKGROUND
Recent evidence for a tight coupling of sensorimotor processes in trained musicians led to the question of whether this coupling extends to preattentively mediated reflexes; particularly, whether a classically conditioned response in one of the domains (auditory) is generalized to another (tactile/motor) on the basis of a prior association in a second-order Pavlovian paradigm. An eyeblink conditioning procedure was performed in 17 pianists, serving as a model for overlearned audiomotor integration, and 14 non-musicians.


RESULTS
During the training session, subjects were conditioned to respond to auditory stimuli (piano tones). During a subsequent testing session, when subjects performed keystrokes on a silent piano, pianists showed significantly higher blink rates than non-musicians.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest a tight coupling of the auditory and motor domains in musicians, pointing towards training-dependent mechanisms of strong cross-modal sensorimotor associations even on sub-cognitive processing levels.
Bangert
Marc
M
Institute of Music Physiology and Musicians Medicine, Hanover University of Music and Drama, Hohenzollernstrasse 47, D-30161 Hanover, Germany. bangert@gmx.com
Jürgens
Uwe
U
Häusler
Udo
U
Altenmüller
Eckart
E
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001307:Auditory Perception; D001767:Blinking / Q000502:physiology; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000502:physiology*; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009146:Music; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity