Browsing by Subject "tapahtumasidonnaiset jännitevasteet (ERP)"

Objectives. Consonance and dissonance are basic features of harmonic music and are most likely based on the properties of our auditory system and are discriminated automatically at the level of early information processing. Attentional focus may have an effect on the preattentional discrimination of dissonance. In addition, musical expertise has been shown to affect the processing of musical stimuli on a neural level. However, the effects of musical expertise on early levels of processing and plasticity are not yet known. The aim of this study was to explore whether there are differing effects of musical dissonance on event-related brain potentials (ERPs) between musicians and non-musicians and how the attentional focus might alter the possible effect. A second aim was to find out how musicians and nonmusicians discriminate dissonance in a separate behavioral task. Methods. 16 musicians and 14 non-musicians took part in the study. Electroencephalography (EEG) was used to measure participants’ ERPs, while listening to chords presented in an oddball-paradigm. Two dissonant four-tone chords with different levels of dissonance were presented in a consonant chord context. The chords were presented in a passive condition and in an active listening task. The mismatch negativity (MMN) potential amplitudes were used to investigate pre-attentive discrimination. In addition, participants discriminated the chords according to their dissonance in a behavioral test. Results and conclusions. The dissonant chords evoked MMN responses in both conditions and in both groups. The frontal part of the brain displayed stronger MMN responses to the more dissonant chord. The change of attentional focus had an effect only on the nonmusicians and the MMN response in the passive condition was stronger than the one in the active condition. Both groups performed better than chance in the behavioral test but overall, musicians discriminated dissonance more accurately. The results indicate that dissonance is a musical feature that is discriminated in pre-attentive information processing independent of musical expertise. However, musical expertise seems to facilitate the discrimination processes in a behavioral task.