Wu Qiong, Sun Lijun, Ding Nai, Yang Yufang
CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101 China.
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Cogn Neurodyn. 2024 Aug;18(4):1955-1976. doi: 10.1007/s11571-023-10058-w. Epub 2024 Jan 20.
As the basis of musical emotions, dynamic tension experience is felt by listeners as music unfolds over time. The effects of musical harmonic and melodic structures on tension have been widely investigated, however, the potential roles of metrical structures in tension perception remain largely unexplored. This experiment examined how different metrical structures affect tension experience and explored the underlying neural activities. The electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded and subjective tension was rated simultaneously while participants listened to music meter sequences. On large time scale of whole meter sequences, it was found that different overall tension and low-frequency (1 ~ 4 Hz) steady-state evoked potentials were elicited by metrical structures with different periods of strong beats, and the higher overall tension was associated with metrical structure with the shorter intervals between strong beats. On small time scale of measures, dynamic tension fluctuations within measures was found to be associated with the periodic modulations of high-frequency (10 ~ 25 Hz) neural activities. The comparisons between the same beats within measures and across different meters both on small and large time scales verified the contextual effects of meter on tension induced by beats. Our findings suggest that the overall tension is determined by temporal intervals between strong beats, and the dynamic tension experience may arise from cognitive processing of hierarchical temporal expectation and attention, which are discussed under the theoretical frameworks of metrical hierarchy, musical expectation and dynamic attention.
作为音乐情感的基础，动态紧张感体验是听众在音乐随时间展开时所感受到的。音乐和声与旋律结构对紧张感的影响已得到广泛研究，然而，节拍结构在紧张感感知中的潜在作用仍 largely unexplored（未得到充分探索）。本实验研究了不同的节拍结构如何影响紧张感体验，并探索了其潜在的神经活动。在参与者聆听音乐节拍序列时，同时记录脑电图（EEG）并对主观紧张感进行评分。在整个节拍序列的大时间尺度上，发现不同周期的强拍节拍结构会引发不同的整体紧张感和低频（1至4赫兹）稳态诱发电位，且整体紧张感越高与强拍之间间隔越短的节拍结构相关。在小节的小时间尺度上，发现小节内的动态紧张感波动与高频（10至25赫兹）神经活动的周期性调制有关。在小时间尺度和大时间尺度上对小节内相同节拍以及不同节拍之间的比较，验证了节拍对节拍所引发紧张感的情境效应。我们的研究结果表明，整体紧张感由强拍之间的时间间隔决定，动态紧张感体验可能源于对层次时间期望和注意力的认知加工，这在节拍层次、音乐期望和动态注意力的理论框架下进行了讨论。
