Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Subcortical representation of musical dyads
T2 - individual differences and neural generators
AU - Bones, Oliver
AU - Plack, Christopher J.
PY - 2015/5
Y1 - 2015/5
N2 - When two notes are played simultaneously they form a musical dyad. The sensation of pleasantness, or "consonance", of a dyad is likely driven by the harmonic relation of the frequency components of the combined spectrum of the two notes. Previous work has demonstrated a relation between individual preference for consonant over dissonant dyads, and the strength of neural temporal coding of the harmonicity of consonant relative to dissonant dyads as measured using the electrophysiological "frequency-following response" (FFR). However, this work also demonstrated that both these variables correlate strongly with musical experience. The current study was designed to determine whether the relation between consonance preference and neural temporal coding is maintained when controlling for musical experience. The results demonstrate that strength of neural coding of harmonicity is predictive of individual preference for consonance even for non-musicians. An additional purpose of the current study was to assess the cochlear generation site of the FFR to low-frequency dyads. By comparing the reduction in FFR strength when high-pass masking noise was added to the output of a model of the auditory periphery, the results provide evidence for the FFR to low-frequency dyads resulting in part from basal cochlear generators. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
AB - When two notes are played simultaneously they form a musical dyad. The sensation of pleasantness, or "consonance", of a dyad is likely driven by the harmonic relation of the frequency components of the combined spectrum of the two notes. Previous work has demonstrated a relation between individual preference for consonant over dissonant dyads, and the strength of neural temporal coding of the harmonicity of consonant relative to dissonant dyads as measured using the electrophysiological "frequency-following response" (FFR). However, this work also demonstrated that both these variables correlate strongly with musical experience. The current study was designed to determine whether the relation between consonance preference and neural temporal coding is maintained when controlling for musical experience. The results demonstrate that strength of neural coding of harmonicity is predictive of individual preference for consonance even for non-musicians. An additional purpose of the current study was to assess the cochlear generation site of the FFR to low-frequency dyads. By comparing the reduction in FFR strength when high-pass masking noise was added to the output of a model of the auditory periphery, the results provide evidence for the FFR to low-frequency dyads resulting in part from basal cochlear generators. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
KW - FREQUENCY-FOLLOWING RESPONSE
KW - AUDITORY-NERVE FIBERS
KW - HUMAN BRAIN-STEM
KW - INNER-HAIR CELL
KW - BASILAR-MEMBRANE
KW - SQUIRREL-MONKEY
KW - ACTION-POTENTIALS
KW - PITCH
KW - MASKING
KW - TONE
U2 - 10.1016/j.heares.2015.01.009
DO - 10.1016/j.heares.2015.01.009
M3 - Journal article
VL - 323
SP - 9
EP - 21
JO - Hearing Research
JF - Hearing Research
SN - 0378-5955
ER -