Effects of Psychoacoustic Training on the Pre-Attentive Processing of Harmonic Sounds and Syllables

Abstract

This article aimed at investigating the neural underpinnings of music-to-language transfer effects at the pre-attentive level of processing. We conducted a longitudinal experiment with a test-training-retest procedure. Nonmusician adults were trained either on frequency (experimental group) or on intensity (control group) of harmonic tones using methods from psychophysics. Pre- and posttraining, we recorded brain electrical activity and we analyzed the mismatch negativity (MMN) and the P3a component both to harmonic complex sounds and to syllables varying in frequency. Frequency training influenced the pre-attentive perception of pitch for large harmonic deviant sounds but not for syllables. Results are discussed in terms of near and far transfer effects from psychoacoustic training to pre-attentive pitch processing and as possibly showing some limits to transfer effects.