Abstract
The perception of harmonic complexes provides important information for musical and vocal communication. Numerous studies have shown that musical training and expertise are associated with better processing of harmonic complexes, however, it is unclear whether the perceptual improvement associated with musical training is universal to different pitch models. The current study addresses this issue by measuring discrimination thresholds of musicians (n = 20) and non-musicians (n = 18) to diotic (same sound to both ears) and dichotic (different sounds to each ear) sounds of four stimulus types: (1) pure sinusoidal tones, PT; (2) four-harmonic complex tones, CT; (3) iterated rippled noise, IRN; and (4) interaurally correlated broadband noise, called the “Huggins” or “dichotic” pitch, DP. Frequency difference limens (DLF) for each stimulus type were obtained via a three-alternative-forced-choice adaptive task requiring selection of the interval with the highest pitch, yielding the smallest perceptible fundamental frequency (F0) distance (in Hz) between two sounds. Music skill was measured by an online test of musical pitch, melody and timing maintained by the International Laboratory for Brain Music and Sound Research. Musicianship, length of music experience and self-evaluation of musical skill were assessed by questionnaire. Results showed musicians had smaller DLFs in all four conditions with the largest group difference in the dichotic condition. DLF thresholds were related to both subjective and objective musical ability. In addition, subjective self-report of musical ability was shown to be a significant variable in group classification. Taken together, the results suggest that music-related plasticity benefits multiple mechanisms of pitch encoding and that self-evaluation of musicality can be reliably associated with objective measures of perception.
Highlights
Musical training is associated with better frequency encoding and harmonic complex perception
A mixed-model repeated measures ANOVA, with group as the independent variable and stimulus type (CT, pure tone (PT), iterated noise (IRN) and dichotic pitch (DP)) as the dependent variable was performed to determine the effect of group on discrimination thresholds
Our results help answer the question of whether perceptual plasticity associated with musical training is specific to certain pitch-related acoustics
Summary
Musical training is associated with better frequency encoding and harmonic complex perception (for review see [1]). A prevalent hypothesis is that musical training improves underlying auditory processing mechanisms that give rise to pitch perception. Music practice and performance could activate and strengthen the temporal synchrony of these networks, thereby improving representation and higher-order computation acuity. Another mechanism to encode sound, called “place code”, functions such that different frequencies activate discrete regions of the inner ear and subsequent nuclei, producing a tonotopic map of frequencies at each processing station (for review, see [14]). In order to assess musical skill, all participants took an online musical test for pitch, melody and timing measurements and filled out a questionnaire that probed duration of musical training and subjective self-reports of musical skill and listening habits
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