Psychology of Music Learning

1
Psychology of Music Learning

• Miksza - Spring 08
• WEEK FOURTEEN
• Music and Brain Research
• from Peretz Zatorre (2005)

2
Perception and Recognition

• Pitch relations
• Evidence from brain impairment suggests pitch and
  time perception are separate neural subsystems
  but imaging results are less conclusive
• Right auditory cortex analyzing pitch
  information
• Both hemispheres are important for contour and
  interval perception
• ERP and fMRI research shows evidence of a neural
  system of tonal perception (scales) usually in
  the form of recognition of deviations
• Deviations from harmonic expectancies are also
  evident in ERP studies

3
Perception and Recognition

• Time relations
• Neuropsychological evidence suggest that rhythm
  and beat perception are tied to different
  processing components rather than being
  hierarchical in nature
• Studies of beat tapping in various hands or by
  individuals with brain impairments cited
• Some with lesions can discriminate rhythmic
  patterns but not metric grouping
• Evidence for importance of basal ganglia and
  cerebellum in timed motor-tasks

4
Memory

• Memory important since music unfolds over time
• Melodic recognition can be hampered in a variety
  of ways given brain injury
• Auditory cortex is active during imagery or
  mental rehearsal

5
Emotion

• Emotional response may be tied to a relatively
  distinct neural network
• Brain impaired individuals may be able to
  recognize emotional import in music even if not
  the music itself
• Cerebral blood flow patterns can be linked to
  musical chills experiences

6
Performance

• Singing
• Neural disassociation between speech and singing
  is possible
• Aphasia does not imply amusia and vice versa
• Loss of melody has been tied to right-hemisphere
  lesions
• Loss of rhythm has been tied to left hemisphere
  regions
• Sight-reading
• Can lose language reading and retain musical and
  vice versa

7
Training

• Unique opportunity to study brain plasticity
• Experience shapes cortical networks
• Motor cortex is enhanced structurally and
  functionally in musicians
• Cortical representation of left-hand for string
  players larger than non-musicians, no difference
  in right hand
• Musicians exhibit greater responses to piano
  tones than non-musicians
• AP may rely on an innate neural substrate
• AP listeners show less ERP
• Mental practice may lead to similar although
  less-pronounced effects as physical practice in
  cortical excitement

8
Music Specificity

• Network of regions in both right and left
  hemispheres
• Right-side asymmetry for pitch-based processing
• Time-relations are somewhat more bi-lateral
• Most evidence points to distinct neural
  processing patterns for musical events