title: Harmonic relationships influence auditory brainstem encoding of chords.
abstract: The cortical processing of musical sounds is influenced by listeners' sensitivity to the structural regularities of music, and particularly by sensitivity to harmonic relationships. As subcortical and cortical processing dynamically interact to shape auditory perception in an experience-dependent manner, we asked whether subcortical processing of musical sounds would be sensitive to harmonic relationships. We examined auditory brainstem responses to a chord that was preceded either by a harmonically related chord, by an unrelated chord, or was repeated. We observed higher spectral response magnitudes in the related than in the unrelated or repeated conditions, for both musician and nonmusician listeners. Our results suggest that listeners' implicit knowledge of musical regularities influences subcortical auditory processing.
authors.affiliation: Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA. frederic.marmel@gmail.com
authors.forename: Frederic
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Marmel
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Parbery-Clark
authors.forename: Erika
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Skoe
authors.forename: Trent
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nicol
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kraus
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D016057:Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult