Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Cognitive Science, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland ; Finnish Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Music Research, University of Jyväskylä Jyväskylä, Finland.
Front Psychol. 2013 Aug 7;4:492. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00492. eCollection 2013.
Neural encoding of abstract rules in the audition of newborn infants has been recently demonstrated in several studies using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the present study the neural encoding of Western music chords was investigated in newborn infants. Using ERPs, we examined whether the categorizations of major vs. minor and consonance vs. dissonance are present at the level of the change-related mismatch response (MMR). Using an oddball paradigm, root minor, dissonant and inverted major chords were presented in a context of consonant root major chords. The chords were transposed to several different frequency levels, so that the deviant chords did not include a physically deviant frequency that could result in an MMR without categorization. The results show that the newborn infants were sensitive to both dissonant and minor chords but not to inverted major chords in the context of consonant root major chords. While the dissonant chords elicited a large positive MMR, the minor chords elicited a negative MMR. This indicates that the two categories were processed differently. The results suggest newborn infants are sensitive to Western music categorizations, which is consistent with the authors' previous studies in adults and school-aged children.
近期多项研究采用事件相关电位（ERP）技术，证实了新生儿听觉系统能够对抽象规则进行神经编码。本研究旨在探究新生儿对西方音乐和弦的神经编码。我们运用 ERP 技术，检验了在变化相关失匹配响应（MMR）水平上，大调与小调、协和与不协和的分类是否存在。采用一种“Oddball”范式，在协和根大调和弦的背景下，呈现根小三和弦、不协和和弦以及倒置大三和弦。将和弦转调到几个不同的频率水平，使得这些不协和和弦不包含物理上的不协和频率，从而避免了不协和分类而产生的 MMR。结果表明，在协和根大调和弦的背景下，新生儿对不协和和弦和小调和弦敏感，但对倒置大三和弦不敏感。不协和和弦引起了较大的正 MMR，而小调和弦引起了负 MMR。这表明这两个类别被以不同的方式处理。这些结果表明，新生儿对西方音乐分类敏感，这与作者之前在成人和学龄儿童中的研究结果一致。
