Multi-Variate EEG Analysis as a Novel Tool to Examine Brain Responses to Naturalistic Music Stimuli.

Note onsets in music are acoustic landmarks providing auditory cues that underlie the perception of more complex phenomena such as beat, rhythm, and meter. For naturalistic ongoing sounds a detailed view on the neural representation of onset structure is hard to obtain, since, typically, stimulus-re...

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Main Authors: Irene Sturm, Sven Dähne, Benjamin Blankertz, Gabriel Curio
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2015-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141281
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author Irene Sturm
Sven Dähne
Benjamin Blankertz
Gabriel Curio
author_facet Irene Sturm
Sven Dähne
Benjamin Blankertz
Gabriel Curio
author_sort Irene Sturm
collection DOAJ
description Note onsets in music are acoustic landmarks providing auditory cues that underlie the perception of more complex phenomena such as beat, rhythm, and meter. For naturalistic ongoing sounds a detailed view on the neural representation of onset structure is hard to obtain, since, typically, stimulus-related EEG signatures are derived by averaging a high number of identical stimulus presentations. Here, we propose a novel multivariate regression-based method extracting onset-related brain responses from the ongoing EEG. We analyse EEG recordings of nine subjects who passively listened to stimuli from various sound categories encompassing simple tone sequences, full-length romantic piano pieces and natural (non-music) soundscapes. The regression approach reduces the 61-channel EEG to one time course optimally reflecting note onsets. The neural signatures derived by this procedure indeed resemble canonical onset-related ERPs, such as the N1-P2 complex. This EEG projection was then utilized to determine the Cortico-Acoustic Correlation (CACor), a measure of synchronization between EEG signal and stimulus. We demonstrate that a significant CACor (i) can be detected in an individual listener's EEG of a single presentation of a full-length complex naturalistic music stimulus, and (ii) it co-varies with the stimuli's average magnitudes of sharpness, spectral centroid, and rhythmic complexity. In particular, the subset of stimuli eliciting a strong CACor also produces strongly coordinated tension ratings obtained from an independent listener group in a separate behavioral experiment. Thus musical features that lead to a marked physiological reflection of tone onsets also contribute to perceived tension in music.
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spelling doaj.art-6aa8da3c389343bfa1dd9e96ffddfed72022-12-21T22:36:00ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032015-01-011010e014128110.1371/journal.pone.0141281Multi-Variate EEG Analysis as a Novel Tool to Examine Brain Responses to Naturalistic Music Stimuli.Irene SturmSven DähneBenjamin BlankertzGabriel CurioNote onsets in music are acoustic landmarks providing auditory cues that underlie the perception of more complex phenomena such as beat, rhythm, and meter. For naturalistic ongoing sounds a detailed view on the neural representation of onset structure is hard to obtain, since, typically, stimulus-related EEG signatures are derived by averaging a high number of identical stimulus presentations. Here, we propose a novel multivariate regression-based method extracting onset-related brain responses from the ongoing EEG. We analyse EEG recordings of nine subjects who passively listened to stimuli from various sound categories encompassing simple tone sequences, full-length romantic piano pieces and natural (non-music) soundscapes. The regression approach reduces the 61-channel EEG to one time course optimally reflecting note onsets. The neural signatures derived by this procedure indeed resemble canonical onset-related ERPs, such as the N1-P2 complex. This EEG projection was then utilized to determine the Cortico-Acoustic Correlation (CACor), a measure of synchronization between EEG signal and stimulus. We demonstrate that a significant CACor (i) can be detected in an individual listener's EEG of a single presentation of a full-length complex naturalistic music stimulus, and (ii) it co-varies with the stimuli's average magnitudes of sharpness, spectral centroid, and rhythmic complexity. In particular, the subset of stimuli eliciting a strong CACor also produces strongly coordinated tension ratings obtained from an independent listener group in a separate behavioral experiment. Thus musical features that lead to a marked physiological reflection of tone onsets also contribute to perceived tension in music.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141281
spellingShingle Irene Sturm
Sven Dähne
Benjamin Blankertz
Gabriel Curio
Multi-Variate EEG Analysis as a Novel Tool to Examine Brain Responses to Naturalistic Music Stimuli.
PLoS ONE
title Multi-Variate EEG Analysis as a Novel Tool to Examine Brain Responses to Naturalistic Music Stimuli.
title_full Multi-Variate EEG Analysis as a Novel Tool to Examine Brain Responses to Naturalistic Music Stimuli.
title_fullStr Multi-Variate EEG Analysis as a Novel Tool to Examine Brain Responses to Naturalistic Music Stimuli.
title_full_unstemmed Multi-Variate EEG Analysis as a Novel Tool to Examine Brain Responses to Naturalistic Music Stimuli.
title_short Multi-Variate EEG Analysis as a Novel Tool to Examine Brain Responses to Naturalistic Music Stimuli.
title_sort multi variate eeg analysis as a novel tool to examine brain responses to naturalistic music stimuli
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141281
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