title: Musicianship facilitates the processing of Western music chords--an ERP and behavioral study.
abstract: The present study addressed the effects of musicianship on neural and behavioral discrimination of Western music chords. In abstract oddball paradigms, minor chords and inverted major chords were presented in the context of major chords to musician and non-musician participants in a passive listening task (with EEG recordings) and in an active discrimination task. Both sinusoidal sounds and harmonically rich piano sounds were used. Musicians outperformed non-musicians in the discrimination task. Change-related mismatch negativity (MMN) was evoked to minor and inverted major chords in musicians only, and N1 amplitude was larger in musicians than non-musicians. While MMN was absent in non-musicians, both groups showed decreased N1 in response to minor compared to major chords. The results indicate that processing of complex musical stimuli is enhanced in musicians both behaviorally and neurally, but that major-minor chord categorization is present to some extent also in the absence of music training.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Cognitive Science, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 9, Helsinki 00014, Finland. Electronic address: paula.virtala@helsinki.fi.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Virtala
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Cognitive Science, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 9, Helsinki 00014, Finland; Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Huotilainen
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Cognitive Science, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 9, Helsinki 00014, Finland.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Partanen
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Cognitive Science, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 9, Helsinki 00014, Finland.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tervaniemi
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D011361:Professional Competence; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Auditory processing; Electroencephalography (EEG); Event-related potentials (ERP); Mismatch negativity (MMN); Music