title: Earlier timbre processing of instrumental tones compared to equally complex spectrally rotated sounds as revealed by the mismatch negativity.
abstract: Harmonically rich sounds have been shown to be processed more efficiently by the human brain compared to single sinusoidal tones. To control for stimulus complexity as a potentially confounding factor, tones and equally complex spectrally rotated sounds, have been used in the present study to investigate the role of the overtone series in sensory auditory processing in non-musicians. Timbre differences in instrumental tones with equal pitch elicited a MMN which was earlier compared to that elicited by the spectrally rotated sounds, indicating that harmonically rich tones are processed faster compared to non-musical sounds without an overtone series, even when pitch is not the relevant information.
authors.affiliation: Center for Cognitive Science, Cognitive and Developmental Psychology Unit, University of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany. Electronic address: cchristm@rhrk.uni-kl.de.
authors.forename: Corinna A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Christmann
authors.affiliation: Center for Cognitive Science, Cognitive and Developmental Psychology Unit, University of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lachmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology, Institute for Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Berti
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D010898:Pitch Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Auditory processing; Event related brain potentials (ERP); Mismatch negativity (MMN); Musical sounds; Spectrally rotated sounds; Stimulus complexity