Week 8: A New Approach to the Cognitive Neuroscience of Melody - Patel

Melody
-tone sequence of individual tones processed in terms of structured
relationships.
- melody depends on perceptual system of converting sequence into meaning

Melody perception includes
1)Instrument identity - timbre relies on spectral and temporal shape of sound
2)Grouping – more than one note, phrases
3)Beat and meter – events and inferences due to pattern pitch durations
4)Scale structure – culture specific e.g Western tonal music. Immunity to structure = tune deafness (congenital amusia)
5)Contour – pitch contour+ temporal pattern defines melodic contour. Melodic contour sensitive in infancy and contributes to intonation in speech perception and melodic memory
6)Parallelism – motivic/thematic similarity in different parts of melody
7)Intervallic implications – Gestalt principles apply to expectations of interval and melodic contours.
8)Tension vs. resolution – tonal weight (degree of structural stability of each tone in a key)and duration (longer tone=less tension). Krumhansl
9)Ornamentation – tonal hierarchy influences perception of ornamentation vs. structural form
10)Implicit harmony – chordal vertical/horizontal organization of pitches=harmony. Explicit vs. implicit.
11)Expression – variations in timing and amplitude to convey emotional interpretation
12)Complexity -
13)Meta-relations – relation between grouping and meter, contour and beat. Beat is very important in forming meta-relations with melody

Relationship between speech melodies (get the job done) and musical melodies (can stay in memory)

Approaches to the study of the neuroscience of melody
1)Neuropsychological approach – melodic perception in brain damaged individuals (right hemisphere=melodic contour, left = pitch)
2)Event-related potential approach (ERP) – study of melodic processing using EEG.
3)Haemodynamic approach – PET and fMRI. Detects blood flow to regions of the brain (inferior frontal gyrus and right temporal gyrus maintain tonal memory)
4)Auditory steady-state response (aSSR) – NEW!!! Patel & Balaban
aSSr is a sinusoidal neural oscillation produced in primary auditory cortex in response to acoustic stimulus. Used with a constant amplitude modulation rate (AM). Used to measure expectancy of tone sequence perception i.e. can be used to measure how expectancy is structured.