Adult-like pitch processing skills in newborn infants

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Adult-like pitch processing skills in newborn infants G. Stefanics1, 2*, Gabor P. Háden1, 3, I. Sziller4, A. Beke4, M. D. Westergaard5, S. Denham6, L. Balázs1 and István Winkler1, 7 1 Institute for Psychology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary 2 Department of Experimental Zoology and Neurobiology, University of Pécs, Hungary 3 Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary 4 First Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Semmelweis University, Hungary 5 Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom 6 Centre for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, University of Plymouth, United Kingdom 7 Institute of Psychology, University of Szeged, Hungary Pitch is a perceived auditory feature ordering sounds on a scale from low to high. The auditory system analyzes sound structure in a complex way to arrive at perceiving and representing pitch. Some theories suggest that learning plays an important role in pitch perception. Therefore we tested whether or not nontrivial forms of pitch analysis are functional in newborn infants, especially because pitch processing is an important prerequisite of music and speech perception and is also crucial for representing auditory objects. In two separate studies we investigated 1) whether or not newborn infants generalize pitch across different timbres and 2) whether the auditory system of newborns extracts the constancy of a pitch interval from exemplars varying in absolute pitch. In both experiments we recorded event-related brain potentials in healthy newborn infants to frequent standard and infrequent deviant sound stimuli. In study 1) timbre-independent pitch representation was tested by a paradigm where we applied randomly varying tones of different perceived resonator size, which is an aspect of timbre that informs the listener about the size of the sound source. The elicitation of an early negative and a later positive discriminative response by deviant sounds demonstrated that the neonate auditory system represents pitch separately from timbre. In study 2) we investigated whether the auditory system of newborns extracts the constancy of a pitch interval from exemplars varying in absolute pitch. To this end we applied an oddball paradigm consisting of frequent standard and infrequent deviant tone pairs. Tone pairs varied in absolute frequency. Standard and deviant pairs differed in the amount of pitch difference within the pairs, but not in the direction of pitch change. Deviant tone pairs elicited a discriminative ERP response, suggesting that the neonate auditory system represents pitch intervals similarly to adults. Our results demonstrate that adult-like pitch processing abilities are present already at birth and they allow newborn infants to learn music, speech prosody, and to process various important auditory cues based on spectral acoustic features. Conference: MMN 09 Fifth Conference on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) and its Clinical and Scientific Applications, Budapest, Hungary, 4 Apr - 7 Apr, 2009. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Presentations Citation: Stefanics G, Háden GP, Sziller I, Beke A, Westergaard MD, Denham S, Balázs L and Winkler I (2009). Adult-like pitch processing skills in newborn infants. Conference Abstract: MMN 09 Fifth Conference on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) and its Clinical and Scientific Applications. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.05.070 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 24 Mar 2009; Published Online: 24 Mar 2009. * Correspondence: G. Stefanics, Institute for Psychology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary, gstefanics@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers G. Stefanics Gabor P Háden I. Sziller A. Beke M. D Westergaard S. Denham L. Balázs István Winkler Google G. Stefanics Gabor P Háden I. Sziller A. Beke M. D Westergaard S. Denham L. Balázs István Winkler Google Scholar G. Stefanics Gabor P Háden I. Sziller A. Beke M. D Westergaard S. Denham L. Balázs István Winkler PubMed G. Stefanics Gabor P Háden I. Sziller A. Beke M. D Westergaard S. Denham L. Balázs István Winkler Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.