title: Anatomical differences in the human inferior colliculus relate to the perceived valence of musical consonance and dissonance.
abstract: Helmholtz himself speculated about a role of the cochlea in the perception of musical dissonance. Here we indirectly investigated this issue, assessing the valence judgment of musical stimuli with variable consonance/dissonance and presented diotically (exactly the same dissonant signal was presented to both ears) or dichotically (a consonant signal was presented to each ear--both consonant signals were rhythmically identical but differed by a semitone in pitch). Differences in brain organisation underlying inter-subject differences in the percept of dichotically presented dissonance were determined with voxel-based morphometry. Behavioral results showed that diotic dissonant stimuli were perceived as more unpleasant than dichotically presented dissonance, indicating that interactions within the cochlea modulated the valence percept during dissonance. However, the behavioral data also suggested that the dissonance percept did not depend crucially on the cochlea, but also occurred as a result of binaural integration when listening to dichotic dissonance. These results also showed substantial between-participant variations in the valence response to dichotic dissonance. These differences were in a voxel-based morphometry analysis related to differences in gray matter density in the inferior colliculus, which strongly substantiated a key role of the inferior colliculus in consonance/dissonance representation in humans.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstrasse 1A, Leipzig 04103, Germany. fritz@cbs.mpg.de|Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music, Ghent, Belgium.|Department of Nuclear Medicine, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas Hans
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Fritz
authors.affiliation: Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Wiske
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Renders
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstrasse 1A, Leipzig, 04103, Germany.
authors.forename: Karsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstrasse 1A, Leipzig, 04103, Germany.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schmude
authors.affiliation: Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Leman
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstrasse 1A, Leipzig, 04103, Germany.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstrasse 1A, Leipzig, 04103, Germany.
authors.forename: Arno
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Villringer
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D007245:Inferior Colliculi / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: aesthetics; dichotic; inferior colliculus; music; pulvinar; roughness