Sun Lijun, Feng Chen, Yang Yufang
Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2020 Jun 24;14:210. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.00210. eCollection 2020.
Tension experience is the basis for music emotion. In music, discrete elements are always organized into complex nested structures to convey emotion. However, the processing of music tension in the nested structure remains unknown. The present study investigated the tension experience induced by the nested structure and the underlying neural mechanisms, using a continuous tension rating task and electroencephalography (EEG) at the same time. Thirty musicians listened to music chorale sequences with non-nested, singly nested and doubly nested structures and were required to rate their real-time tension experience. Behavioral data indicated that the tension experience induced by the nested structure had more fluctuations than the non-nested structure, and the difference was mainly exhibited in the process of tension induction rather than tension resolution. However, the EEG data showed that larger late positive components (LPCs) were elicited by the ending chords in the nested structure compared with the non-nested structure, reflecting the difference in cognitive integration for long-distance structural dependence. The discrepancy between resolution experience and neural responses revealed the non-parallel relations between emotion and cognition. Furthermore, the LPC elicited by the doubly nested structure showed a smaller scalp distribution than the singly nested structure, indicating the more difficult processing of the doubly nested structure. These findings revealed the dynamic tension experience induced by the nested structure and the influence of nested type, shedding new light on the relationship between structure and tension in music.
紧张感体验是音乐情感的基础。在音乐中，离散元素总是被组织成复杂的嵌套结构来传达情感。然而，嵌套结构中音乐紧张感的处理过程仍不为人知。本研究同时使用连续紧张感评分任务和脑电图（EEG），探究了嵌套结构引发的紧张感体验及其潜在的神经机制。30名音乐家聆听了具有非嵌套、单嵌套和双嵌套结构的音乐合唱序列，并被要求对他们的实时紧张感体验进行评分。行为数据表明，与非嵌套结构相比，嵌套结构引发的紧张感体验波动更大，且这种差异主要体现在紧张感诱发过程而非紧张感消解过程中。然而，脑电图数据显示，与非嵌套结构相比，嵌套结构中的结束和弦引发了更大的晚期正成分（LPCs），这反映了在远距离结构依赖的认知整合方面的差异。紧张感消解体验与神经反应之间的差异揭示了情感与认知之间的非平行关系。此外，双嵌套结构引发的晚期正成分在头皮上的分布范围比单嵌套结构小，这表明双嵌套结构的处理难度更大。这些发现揭示了由嵌套结构引发的动态紧张感体验以及嵌套类型的影响，为音乐中结构与紧张感之间的关系提供了新的见解。
