Sharma Vivek V, Thaut Michael, Russo Frank, Alain Claude
Music and Health Research Collaboratory, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Front Neurosci. 2019 Sep 6;13:932. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2019.00932. eCollection 2019.
Musicians have considerable experience naming pitch-classes with verbal (e.g., Doh, Ré, and Mi) and semiotic tags (e.g., musical notation). On the one end of the spectrum, musicians can identify the pitch of a piano tone or quality of a chord without a reference tone [i.e., absolute pitch (AP) or relative pitch], which suggests strong associations between the perceived pitch information and verbal labels. Here, we examined the strength of this association using auditory versions of the Stroop task while neuro-electric brain activity was measured using high-density electroencephalography. In separate blocks of trials, participants were presented with congruent or incongruent auditory words from English language (standard auditory Stroop), Romanic solemnization, or German key lexicons (the latter two versions require some knowledge of music notation). We hypothesized that musically trained groups would show greater Stroop interference effects when presented with incongruent musical notations than non-musicians. Analyses of behavioral data revealed small or even non-existent congruency effects in musicians for solfège and keycodes versions of the Stroop task. This finding was unexpected and appears inconsistent with the hypothesis that musical training and AP are associated with high strength response level associations between a perceived pitch and verbal label. The analyses of event-related potentials revealed three temporally distinct modulations associated with conflict processing. All three modulations were larger in the auditory word Stroop than in the other two versions of the Stroop task. Only AP musicians showed significant congruity effects around 450 and 750 ms post-stimulus when stimuli were presented as Germanic keycodes (i.e., C or G). This finding suggests that AP possessors may process alpha-numeric encodings as word forms with a semantic value, unlike their RP possessing counterparts and non-musically trained individuals. However, the strength of musical conditional associations may not exceed that of standard language in speech.
音乐家在使用语言标签（如哆、唻、咪）和符号标签（如音乐记谱法）来命名音级方面有着丰富的经验。在这个范围的一端，音乐家能够在没有参考音的情况下识别钢琴音调的音高或和弦的性质[即绝对音高（AP）或相对音高]，这表明在感知到的音高信息和语言标签之间存在着强烈的关联。在这里，我们使用听觉版的斯特鲁普任务来检验这种关联的强度，同时使用高密度脑电图来测量神经电活动。在不同的试验块中，向参与者呈现来自英语（标准听觉斯特鲁普）、罗曼语庄重化或德语调号词汇表的一致或不一致的听觉单词（后两个版本需要一些音乐记谱法知识）。我们假设，与非音乐家相比，经过音乐训练的群体在面对不一致的音乐记谱法时会表现出更大的斯特鲁普干扰效应。行为数据分析显示，在音乐家身上，对于斯特鲁普任务的唱名法和调号版本，一致性效应很小甚至不存在。这一发现出乎意料，似乎与音乐训练和绝对音高与感知音高和语言标签之间的高强度反应水平关联相关的假设不一致。事件相关电位分析揭示了与冲突处理相关的三个在时间上不同的调制。在听觉单词斯特鲁普任务中，所有这三种调制都比斯特鲁普任务的其他两个版本更大。只有绝对音高音乐家在刺激以日耳曼调号（即C或G）呈现时，在刺激后约450毫秒和750毫秒左右表现出显著的一致性效应。这一发现表明，与具有相对音高的人以及未经过音乐训练的个体不同，绝对音高拥有者可能将字母数字编码作为具有语义价值的单词形式来处理。然而，音乐条件关联的强度可能不会超过言语中标准语言的强度。
