Levels Of Musical Expertise Research Articles

The Processes and Relationships in Composers Scale

We introduce a new inventory labeled the Processes and Relationships in Composers Scale (PRCS). This is a novel inventory developed to self-assess creative and social factors inherent in music composition. The PRCS consists of two separate scales of 12 items each, namely the Composing Processes Scale (CPS) and the Social Relationship Scale (SRS). An exploratory factor analysis revealed that the CPS scale has a single factor structure, while the SRS scale relies on three main factors: loneliness, support, and friendship. The total score of the CPS was found to be highly reliable, whereas the SRS obtained a lower score. The PRCS can contribute new insights into how creative and social processes can be self-assessed by music composers with different backgrounds and levels of musical expertise. Our work aims to deepen understanding of the relationship between musical creativity and social life, contributing to existing scholarship that has explored this connection in musical activities specifically.

Culture influences conscious appraisal of, but not automatic aversion to, acoustically rough musical intervals.

There is debate whether the foundations of consonance and dissonance are rooted in culture or in psychoacoustics. In order to disentangle the contribution of culture and psychoacoustics, we considered automatic responses to the perfect fifth and the major second (flattened by 25 cents) intervals alongside conscious evaluations of the same intervals across two cultures and two levels of musical expertise. Four groups of participants completed the tasks: expert performers of Lithuanian Sutartinės, English speaking musicians in Western diatonic genres, Lithuanian non-musicians and English-speaking non-musicians. Sutartinės singers were chosen as this style of singing is an example of 'beat diaphony' where intervals of parts form predominantly rough sonorities and audible beats. There was no difference in automatic responses to intervals, suggesting that an aversion to acoustically rough intervals is not governed by cultural familiarity but may have a physical basis in how the human auditory system works. However, conscious evaluations resulted in group differences with Sutartinės singers rating both the flattened major as more positive than did other groups. The results are discussed in the context of recent developments in consonance and dissonance research.

Psychophysical characterization of auditory temporal and frequency streaming capacities for listeners with different levels of musical expertise.

Temporal and frequency auditory streaming capacities were assessed for non-musician (NM), expert musician (EM), and amateur musician (AM) listeners using a local-global task and an interleaved melody recognition task, respectively. Data replicate differences previously observed between NM and EM, and reveal that while AM exhibits a local-over-global processing change comparable to EM, their performance for segregating a melody embedded in a stream remains as poor as NM. The observed group partitioning along the temporal-frequency auditory streaming capacity map suggests a sequential, two-step development model of musical learning, whose contributing factors are discussed.

Mediating effect of cognitive load in song learning with visually presented lyrics

The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether seeing the lyrics while learning a difficult song aurally induces less cognitive load in learners compared to not seeing the lyrics, leading to better recall accuracy of the learned song. Cognitive load was assessed through a reaction time measure based on a dual-task paradigm. Recall accuracy of the learned song was measured regarding lyrics, pitches, and rhythm. Thirty-six non-music majors individually learned two songs through prerecorded aural instruction; for one song they saw the lyrics and for the other song they did not see the lyrics. The presentation order of instructional condition and song were counterbalanced. Results showed instructional condition affected cognitive load but not recall accuracy. A path analysis revealed a mediating effect of cognitive load regarding lyrics and rhythm, suggesting seeing the lyrics indirectly increases recall accuracy of lyrics and rhythm through its positive effect on cognitive load. Given limited instructional time, several strategies should be considered to prevent learners from experiencing cognitive overload while learning a difficult song aurally. Showing the lyrics of the difficult song could be one strategy for that purpose, at least for young adults with low levels of musical expertise.

Music Teachers' Perspectives and Experiences of Ensemble and Learning Skills.

In this article, we report data from two survey studies administered to expert music teachers. Both questionnaires aimed to explore teachers’ pedagogical and performative practice and included open questions elucidating musical skills emerging in groups. The first study focuses on collective teaching settings offered to amateurs, jazz musicians, and university students with various levels of musical expertise. The second reports data from teachers based at the Royal College of Music, London, where the main emphasis is on Western classical repertoire. We integrate both studies and discuss overlapping findings. Despite intrinsic differences concerning the general goals of their teaching and the educational systems in which they operate, our data indicate the ability to “listen and respond to others” as the most important ensemble skill, whereas “time management,” “comparing yourself to the class,” and the “development of responsible ways of learning” emerged as main learning skills. We discuss results and suggestions for future research in teaching and learning music in different contexts in the light of recent theoretical research in the cognitive sciences, considering implications for educators interested in diverse skill levels.

Does a non-practiced cognitive automatism withstand the test of time?

The present study aimed to ascertain whether the automaticity of a learned-cognitive process persisted after lengthy and complete cessation of practice. The musical Stroop paradigm offers the opportunity to test this specific question by evaluating the automaticity of note naming, the flexibility in manipulating practice of which is much greater than that of other cognitive automatisms like reading. Participants who previously attained a high level of musical expertise and ceased all musical practice for at least 3 years exhibited a musical Stroop effect, which attests to the automaticity of note naming. The musical Stroop effect was still observed in a subset of participants who completely ceased musical practice for more than 10 years. Our results suggest that the absence of practice, even over a very long period of time, does not eliminate the automaticity of cognitive processes.

Perception of synchronization in singing ensembles.

Recent investigations analysing synchronization in singing ensembles have shown that the precision of synchronization during singing duo performances is better in the presence of visual contact between the singers than without. Research has also shown that synchronisation improves with practice across rehearsals in a newly formed singing quintet. However, whether listeners’ perceptions of synchronization reflect the different patterns of synchronization that were observed during ensemble performance with and without visual contact and across rehearsals has not yet been investigated. This study aims to analyse the perception of the synchronization associated with altered visual contact and amount of rehearsal during singing duo and quintet performances respectively, for listeners with different levels of musical expertise. A set of fifty-eight singing recordings selected from duo and quintet ensemble performances, collected from previous investigations of interpersonal synchrony, was presented to 33 listeners, including non-experts (university students with little or no music training), performers in the group (singers who performed the pieces used for the study), and other musicians (advanced music students). Participants were required to listen to each trial and judge the level of “togetherness” on a sliding scale from zero to 100. Results show that listeners, irrespective of their musical training and performance experience, perceived differences in the synchronization in the duo tokens depending on the presence/absence of visual contact between singers; on the other hand, the smaller asynchrony patterns measured across rehearsals in the singing quintet recordings were not perceived. This study contributes to our understanding of perceptions of synchronization by individuals with different levels of musical expertise, and underscores the perceptual salience of synchronization, regardless of musical experience.

Eye on Music Reading: A Methodological Review of Studies from 1994 to 2017.

In this review, we focus on the methodological aspects of eye-tracking research in the domain of music, published and/or available between 1994 and 2017, and we identify potentially fruitful next steps to increase coherence and systematicity within this emerging field. We review and discuss choices of musical stimuli, the conditions under which these were performed (i.e. control of performance tempo and music-reading protocols), performer’s level of musical expertise, and handling of performance errors and eye-movement data. We propose that despite a lack of methodological coherence in research to date, careful reflection on earlier methodological choices can help in formulating future research questions and in positioning new work. These steps would represent progress towards a cumulative research tradition, where joint understanding is built by systematic and consistent use of stimuli, research settings and methods of analysis.

The Relative Importance of Aural and Visual Information in the Evaluation of Western Canon Music Performance by Musicians and Nonmusicians

Aural and visual information have been shown to affect audience evaluations of music performance (Griffiths, 2010; Juslin, 2000); however, it is not fully understood which modality has the greatest relative impact upon judgements of performance or if the evaluator’s musical expertise mediates this effect. An opportunity sample of thirty-four musicians (8 male, 26 female Mage = 26.4 years) and 26 nonmusicians (6 male, 20 female, Mage = 44.0 years) rated four video clips for technical proficiency, musicality, and overall performance quality using 7-point Likert scales. Two video performances of Debussy’s Clare de lune (one professional, one amateur) were used to create the four video clips, comprising two clips with congruent modality information, and two clips with incongruent modality information. The incongruent clips contained the visual modality of one quality condition with the audio modality of the other. It was possible to determine which modality was most important in participants’ evaluative judgements based on the modality of the professional quality condition in the clip that was rated most highly. The current study confirms that both aural and visual information can affect audience members’ experience of musical performance. We provide evidence that visual information has a greater impact than aural information on evaluations of performance quality, as the incongruent clip with amateur audio + professional video was rated significantly higher than that with professional audio + amateur video. Participants’ level of musical expertise was found to have no effect on their judgements of performance quality.

Electrical Neuroimaging of Music Processing Reveals Mid-Latency Changes with Level of Musical Expertise.

This original research focused on the effect of musical training intensity on cerebral and behavioral processing of complex music using high-density event-related potential (ERP) approaches. Recently we have been able to show progressive changes with training in gray and white matter, and higher order brain functioning using (f)MRI [(functional) Magnetic Resonance Imaging], as well as changes in musical and general cognitive functioning. The current study investigated the same population of non-musicians, amateur pianists and expert pianists using spatio-temporal ERP analysis, by means of microstate analysis, and ERP source imaging. The stimuli consisted of complex musical compositions containing three levels of transgression of musical syntax at closure that participants appraised. ERP waveforms, microstates and underlying brain sources revealed gradual differences according to musical expertise in a 300–500 ms window after the onset of the terminal chords of the pieces. Within this time-window, processing seemed to concern context-based memory updating, indicated by a P3b-like component or microstate for which underlying sources were localized in the right middle temporal gyrus, anterior cingulate and right parahippocampal areas. Given that the 3 expertise groups were carefully matched for demographic factors, these results provide evidence of the progressive impact of training on brain and behavior.

Mirror neuron activation of musicians and non-musicians in response to motion captured piano performances

Mirror neurons (MNs) activate when performing an action and when an observer witnesses the same action performed by another individual. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and presentation of motion captured piano performances were used to identify differences in MN activation for musicians/non-musicians when viewing piano pieces played in a “Correct” mode (i.e., emphasis on technical correctness) or an “Enjoyment” mode (i.e., simply told to “enjoy” playing the piece). Results showed greater MN activation in a variety of brain regions for musicians, with these differences more pronounced in the “Enjoyment” mode. Our findings suggest that activation of MNs is not only initiated by the imagined action of an observed movement, but such activation is modulated by the level of musical expertise and knowledge of associated motor movements that the observer brings to the viewing situation. Enhanced MN activation in musicians may stem from imagining themselves actually playing the observed piece.

Tracking Training-Related Plasticity by Combining fMRI and DTI: The Right Hemisphere Ventral Stream Mediates Musical Syntax Processing.

As a functional homolog for left-hemispheric syntax processing in language, neuroimaging studies evidenced involvement of right prefrontal regions in musical syntax processing, of which underlying white matter connectivity remains unexplored so far. In the current experiment, we investigated the underlying pathway architecture in subjects with 3 levels of musical expertise. Employing diffusion tensor imaging tractography, departing from seeds from our previous functional magnetic resonance imaging study on music syntax processing in the same participants, we identified a pathway in the right ventral stream that connects the middle temporal lobe with the inferior frontal cortex via the extreme capsule, and corresponds to the left hemisphere ventral stream, classically attributed to syntax processing in language comprehension. Additional morphometric consistency analyses allowed dissociating tract core from more dispersed fiber portions. Musical expertise related to higher tract consistency of the right ventral stream pathway. Specifically, tract consistency in this pathway predicted the sensitivity for musical syntax violations. We conclude that enduring musical practice sculpts ventral stream architecture. Our results suggest that training-related pathway plasticity facilitates the right hemisphere ventral stream information transfer, supporting an improved sound-to-meaning mapping in music.

Interaction features for prediction of perceptual segmentation: Effects of musicianship and experimental task

As music unfolds in time, structure is recognised and understood by listeners, regardless of their level of musical expertise. A number of studies have found spectral and tonal changes to quite successfully model boundaries between structural sections. However, the effects of musical expertise and experimental task on computational modelling of structure are not yet well understood. These issues need to be addressed to better understand how listeners perceive the structure of music and to improve automatic segmentation algorithms. In this study, computational prediction of segmentation by listeners was investigated for six musical stimuli via a real-time task and an annotation (non real-time) task. The proposed approach involved computation of novelty curve interaction features and a prediction model of perceptual segmentation boundary density. We found that, compared to non-musicians’, musicians’ segmentation yielded lower prediction rates, and involved more features for prediction, particularly more interaction features; also non-musicians required a larger time shift for optimal segmentation modelling. Prediction of the annotation task exhibited higher rates, and involved more musical features than for the real-time task; in addition, the real-time task required time shifting of the segmentation data for its optimal modelling. We also found that annotation task models that were weighted according to boundary strength ratings exhibited improvements in segmentation prediction rates and involved more interaction features. In sum, musical training and experimental task seem to have an impact on prediction rates and on musical features involved in novelty-based segmentation models. Musical training is associated with higher presence of schematic knowledge, attention to more dimensions of musical change and more levels of the structural hierarchy, and higher speed of musical structure processing. Real-time segmentation is linked with higher response delays, less levels of structural hierarchy attended and higher data noisiness than annotation segmentation. In addition, boundary strength weighting of density was associated with more emphasis given to stark musical changes and to clearer representation of a hierarchy involving high-dimensional musical changes.

Long-term representations of melodies in Western listeners: Influences of familiarity, musical expertise, tempo and structure

We investigated the effects of familiarity, level of musical expertise, musical tempo, and structural boundaries on the identification of familiar and unfamiliar tunes. Healthy Western listeners ( N = 62; age range 14–64 years) judged their level of familiarity with a preselected set of melodies when the number of tones of a given melody was increased from trial to trial according to the so-called gating paradigm. The number of tones served as one dependent measure. The second dependent measure was the physical duration of the stimulus presentation until listeners identified a melody as familiar or unfamiliar. Results corroborate previous work, suggesting that listeners need less information to recognize familiar as compared to unfamiliar melodies. Both decreasing and increasing the original tempo by a factor of two delayed the identification of familiar melodies. Furthermore, listeners had more difficulty identifying unfamiliar melodies when tempo was increased. Finally, musical expertise significantly influenced identification of either melodic category, i.e., reducing the required number of tones. Taken together, the findings support theories which suggest that tempo information is coded in melody representation, and that musical expertise is associated with especially efficient strategies for accessing long-term representations of melodic materials.

Hippocampal volume predicts fluid intelligence in musically trained people

Recently, age-related hippocampal (HP) volume loss could be associated with a decrease in general fluid intelligence (gF). In the present study we investigated whether and how extensive musical training modulates human HP volume and gF performance. Previously, some studies demonstrated positive effects of musical training on higher cognitive functions such as learning and memory, associated with neural adaptations beyond the auditory domain. In order to detect possible associations between musical training and gF, we bilaterally segmented the HP formation and assessed the individual gF performance of people with different levels of musical expertise. Multiple regression analyses revealed that HP volume predicts gF in musicians but not in nonmusicians; in particular, bilaterally enhanced HP volume is associated with increased gF exclusively in musically trained people (amateurs and experts). This result suggests that musical training facilitates the recruitment of cognitive resources, which are essential for gF and linked to HP functioning. Musical training, even at a moderate level of intensity, can thus be considered as a potential strategy to decelerate age-related effects of cognitive decline.

Optimal Encoding of Interval Timing in Expert Percussionists

We measured temporal reproduction in human subjects with various levels of musical expertise: expert drummers, string musicians, and non-musicians. While duration reproduction of the non-percussionists showed a characteristic central tendency or regression to the mean, drummers responded veridically. Furthermore, when the stimuli were auditory tones rather than flashes, all subjects responded veridically. The behavior of all three groups in both modalities is well explained by a Bayesian model that seeks to minimize reproduction errors by incorporating a central tendency prior, a probability density function centered at the mean duration of the sample. We measured separately temporal precision thresholds with a bisection task; thresholds were twice as low in drummers as in the other two groups. These estimates of temporal precision, together with an adaptable Bayesian prior, predict well the reproduction results and the central tendency strategy under all conditions and for all subject groups. These results highlight the efficiency and flexibility of sensorimotor mechanisms estimating temporal duration.

Optimal encoding of interval timing in expert percussionists

Event Abstract Back to Event Optimal encoding of interval timing in expert percussionists Guido Marco M. Cicchini1*, Roberto Arrighi1 and David C. Burr1 1 University of Florence, Department of Psychology, Italy We measured temporal reproduction in human subjects with various levels of musical expertise: expert drummers, string-musicians and non-musicians. While duration reproduction of the non-percussionists showed a characteristic central tendency or regression to the mean, drummers responded veridically. Furthermore, when the stimuli were auditory tones rather than flashes, all subjects responded veridically. The behavior of all three groups in both visual and auditory modalities is well explained by a Bayesian model that seeks to minimize reproduction errors by incorporating a central tendency prior, a probability density function centered at the mean duration of the sample. We measured separately temporal precision thresholds with a bisection task, which were twice as low in drummers as in the other two groups. These estimates of temporal precision, together with an adaptable Bayesian prior, predict well the reproduction results and the central tendency strategy under all conditions and for all subject groups. These results highlight the efficiency and flexibility of sensori-motor mechanisms estimating temporal duration. Keywords: Bayesian decision theory, music perception, Psychophysics Conference: Neural Coding, Decision-Making & Integration in Time, Rauischholzhausen, Germany, 26 Apr - 29 Apr, 2012. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Neural Coding, Decision-Making & Integration in Time Citation: Cicchini GM, Arrighi R and Burr DC (2012). Optimal encoding of interval timing in expert percussionists. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Neural Coding, Decision-Making & Integration in Time. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2012.86.00002 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: 12 Jan 2012; Published Online: 16 Jan 2012. * Correspondence: Dr. Guido Marco M Cicchini, University of Florence, Department of Psychology, Florence, Italy, cicchini@in.cnr.it 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 Guido Marco M Cicchini Roberto Arrighi David C Burr Google Guido Marco M Cicchini Roberto Arrighi David C Burr Google Scholar Guido Marco M Cicchini Roberto Arrighi David C Burr PubMed Guido Marco M Cicchini Roberto Arrighi David C Burr 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.

The plasticity of the superior longitudinal fasciculus as a function of musical expertise: a diffusion tensor imaging study.

Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that musical expertise leads to functional alterations in language processing. We utilized diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to investigate white matter plasticity in musicians with absolute pitch (AP), relative pitch and non-musicians. Using DTI, we analysed the fractional anisotropy (FA) of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), which is considered the most primary pathway for processing and production of speech and music. In association with different levels of musical expertise, we found that AP is characterized by a greater left than right asymmetry of FA in core fibres of the SLF. A voxel-based analysis revealed three clusters within the left hemisphere SLF that showed significant positive correlations with error rates only for AP-musicians in an AP-test, but not for musicians without AP. We therefore conclude that the SLF architecture in AP musicians is related to AP acuity. In order to reconcile our observations with general aspects of development of fibre bundles, we introduce the Pioneer Axon Thesis, a theoretical approach to formalize axonal arrangements of major white matter pathways.

Aesthetic responses to music: A questionnaire study

We explored the content and structure of the cognitive, knowledge-based concept underlying aesthetic responses to music. To this aim, we asked 290 Finnish students to verbally associate the aesthetic value of music and to write down a list of appropriate adjectives within a given time limit. No music was presented during the task. In addition, information about participants’ musical background was collected. A variety of analysis techniques was used to determine the key results of our study. The adjective “beautiful” proved to be the core item of the concept under question. Interestingly, the adjective “touching” was often listed together with “beautiful”. In addition, we found music-specific vocabulary as well as adjectives related to emotions and mood states indicating that affective processes are an essential part of aethetic responses to music. Differences between music experts and laymen as well as between female and male participants were found for a number of adjectives. These findings suggest the existence of a common conceptual space underlying aesthetic responses to music, which partly can be modified by the level of musical expertise and gender.

Reconstructed Musical Memories and Adult Expertise

The nature/nurture debate with respect to the development of cognitive skills rages ever strong, and musical expertise offers a powerful focus. The democratic view is that everyone has the ability to be musical, it is simply that 'practice makes perfect'. The alternative view, that musical genius is born, not crafted, considers inherited traits to be linked to musicianship. This paper does not suggest that either view is correct, but describes research examining early experience of music amongst people exhibiting different levels of musical expertise. The distinctions in early experience are described together with their implications .