Bouwer Fleur L, Van Zuijen Titia L, Honing Henkjan
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Amsterdam Brain and Cognition (ABC), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2014 May 28;9(5):e97467. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0097467. eCollection 2014.
The perception of a regular beat is fundamental to music processing. Here we examine whether the detection of a regular beat is pre-attentive for metrically simple, acoustically varying stimuli using the mismatch negativity (MMN), an ERP response elicited by violations of acoustic regularity irrespective of whether subjects are attending to the stimuli. Both musicians and non-musicians were presented with a varying rhythm with a clear accent structure in which occasionally a sound was omitted. We compared the MMN response to the omission of identical sounds in different metrical positions. Most importantly, we found that omissions in strong metrical positions, on the beat, elicited higher amplitude MMN responses than omissions in weak metrical positions, not on the beat. This suggests that the detection of a beat is pre-attentive when highly beat inducing stimuli are used. No effects of musical expertise were found. Our results suggest that for metrically simple rhythms with clear accents beat processing does not require attention or musical expertise. In addition, we discuss how the use of acoustically varying stimuli may influence ERP results when studying beat processing.
对规律节拍的感知是音乐处理的基础。在此，我们使用失匹配负波（MMN）来检验对于节拍简单、声学特征多变的刺激，规律节拍的检测是否是前注意的，MMN是一种由违反声学规律引发的事件相关电位反应，无论受试者是否关注这些刺激。我们向音乐家和非音乐家呈现一种具有清晰重音结构的多变节奏，其中偶尔会省略一个声音。我们比较了对不同节拍位置上相同声音省略的MMN反应。最重要的是，我们发现强节拍位置（即节拍上）的省略比弱节拍位置（非节拍上）的省略引发的MMN反应幅度更高。这表明当使用高度诱发节拍的刺激时，节拍的检测是前注意的。未发现音乐专业知识的影响。我们的结果表明，对于节拍简单且重音清晰的节奏，节拍处理不需要注意力或音乐专业知识。此外，我们讨论了在研究节拍处理时，使用声学特征多变的刺激可能如何影响事件相关电位结果。
