scholarly journals Attentional modulation of neural phase is enhanced by short-term training and linked to musical experience

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aeron Laffere ◽  
Fred Dick ◽  
Adam Tierney
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Neural Mechanism ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Auditory Stream ◽  
Reliable Marker

AbstractHow does the brain follow a sound that is mixed with others in a noisy environment? A possible strategy is to allocate attention to task-relevant time intervals while suppressing irrelevant intervals - a strategy that could be implemented by aligning neural modulations with critical moments in time. Here we tested whether selective attention to non-verbal sound streams is linked to shifts in the timing of attentional modulations of EEG activity, and investigated whether this neural mechanism can be enhanced by short-term training and musical experience. Participants performed a memory task on a target auditory stream presented at 4 Hz while ignoring a distractor auditory stream also presented at 4 Hz, but with a 180-degree shift in phase. The two attention conditions were linked to a roughly 180-degree shift in phase in the EEG signal at 4 Hz. Moreover, there was a strong relationship between performance on the 1-back task and the timing of the EEG modulation with respect to the attended band. EEG modulation timing was also enhanced after several days of training on the selective attention task and enhanced in experienced musicians. These results support the hypothesis that modulation of neural timing facilitates attention to particular moments in time and indicate that phase timing is a robust and reliable marker of individual differences in auditory attention. Moreover, these results suggest that nonverbal selective attention can be enhanced in the short term by only a few hours of practice and in the long term by years of musical training.

Long-term pitch memory for music recordings is related to auditory working memory precision

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 879-891 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen C Van Hedger ◽  
Shannon LM Heald ◽  
Howard C Nusbaum
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Fluid Intelligence ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Musical Note ◽  
Pitch Information ◽  
Memory Precision ◽  
Music Recordings

Most individuals have reliable long-term memories for the pitch of familiar music recordings. This pitch memory (1) appears to be normally distributed in the population, (2) does not depend on explicit musical training and (3) only seems to be weakly related to differences in listening frequency estimates. The present experiment was designed to assess whether individual differences in auditory working memory could explain variance in long-term pitch memory for music recordings. In Experiment 1, participants first completed a musical note adjustment task that has been previously used to assess working memory of musical pitch. Afterward, participants were asked to judge the pitch of well-known music recordings, which either had or had not been shifted in pitch. We found that performance on the pitch working memory task was significantly related to performance in the pitch memory task using well-known recordings, even when controlling for overall musical experience and familiarity with each recording. In Experiment 2, we replicated these findings in a separate group of participants while additionally controlling for fluid intelligence and non-pitch-based components of auditory working memory. In Experiment 3, we demonstrated that participants could not accurately judge the pitch of unfamiliar recordings, suggesting that our method of pitch shifting did not result in unwanted acoustic cues that could have aided participants in Experiments 1 and 2. These results, taken together, suggest that the ability to maintain pitch information in working memory might lead to more accurate long-term pitch memory.

Inferotemporal units in selective visual attention and short-term memory

1990 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 681-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Fuster
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Striate Cortex ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Sample Stimulus ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Firing Frequency ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Compound Stimuli ◽  
Selective Visual Attention ◽  
Individual Features

1. This research was designed to further clarify how, in the primate, the neurons of the inferotemporal (IT) cortex support the cognitive functions of visually guided behavior. Specifically, the aim was to determine the role of those neurons in 1) selective attention to behaviorally relevant features of the visual environment and 2) retention of those features in temporary memory. Monkeys were trained in a memory task in which they had to discriminate and retain individual features of compound stimuli, each stimulus consisting of a colored disk with a gray symbol in the middle. A trial began with brief presentation of one such stimulus, the sample for the trial. Depending on the symbol in it, the monkey had to memorize the symbol itself or the background color; after 10-20 s of delay (retention period), two compound stimuli appeared, and the animal had to choose the one with the symbol or with the color of the sample. Thus the test required attention to the symbol, in some trials also to the color, and short-term retention of the distinctive feature for each trial, either a symbol or a color. Single-unit activity was recorded from cortex of the IT convexity, lower and upper banks of the superior temporal sulcus (STS), and from striate cortex (V1). Firing frequency was analyzed during intertrial periods and during the entirety of every trial, except for the (match) choice period. 2. In IT cortex, as in V1, many units responded to the sample stimulus. Some responded indiscriminately to all samples, whereas others responded selectively to one of their features, i.e., to one symbol or to one color. Fifteen percent of the IT units were symbol selective and 21% color selective. These neurons appeared capable of extracting individual features from complex stimuli. Some color cells (color-attentive units) responded significantly more to their preferred color when it was relevant (i.e., had to be retained) than when it was not. 3. The latency of IT-unit response to the sample stimulus was, on the average, relatively short in unselective units (mean 159 ms), longer in symbol units (mean 203 ms), and longest in color-attentive units (mean 270 ms). This order of latencies corresponds to the presumed order of participation of those three types of units in the selective attention to the component features of the sample as required by the task. It suggests intervening steps of serial processing before color information reached color-attentive cells.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Analysis of the Effects of Noise on a Model for the Neural Mechanism of Short-Term Active Memory

1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 668-678 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Devin McAuley ◽  
Joseph Stampfli
Keyword(s):  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Neural Mechanism ◽  
Information Loss ◽  
Sigmoid Function ◽  
Neural Firing ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Match To Sample ◽  
Active Memory ◽  
Random Fluctuations

Zipser (1991) showed that the hidden unit activity of a fully recurrent neural network model, trained on a simple memory task, matched the temporal activity patterns of memory-associated neurons in monkeys performing delayed saccade or delayed match-to-sample tasks. When noise, simulating random fluctuations in neural firing rate, is added to the unit activations of this model, the effect on the memory dynamics is to slow the rate of information loss. In this paper, we show that the dynamics of the iterated sigmoid function, with gain and bias parameters, is qualitatively very similar to the tonic response properties of Zipser's multiunit model. Analysis of the simpler system provides an explanation for the effect of noise that is missing from the description of the multiunit model.

scholarly journals Effects of musical ear training on lexical tone perception

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  
Evan D Bradley ◽  
Janet G Van Hell
Keyword(s):  
Musical Training ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Ear Training ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Tone Perception ◽  
Language Effects ◽  
Tone Discrimination

The effect of short term musical experience on lexical tone perception was examined by administering four hours of daily musical ear training to non-tone language speakers. After training, participants showed some improvement in a tone labeling task, but not a tone discrimination task; however, this improvement did not differ reliably from controls indicating that short-term musical training is thus far not able to replicate language effects observed among lifelong musicians, but some linguistic differences between musicians and nonmusicians may likely be due to experience, rather than individual differences or other factors.

Cognitive and affective benefits of colouring: Two randomized controlled crossover studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Jane Holt ◽  
Leah Furbert ◽  
Emily Sweetingham
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Performance Measures ◽  
Divergent Thinking ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Creative Cognition ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
Mindful Attention ◽  
Crossover Studies ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Implicit Mood

The current research sought to replicate and extend work suggesting that coloring can reduce anxiety, asking whether coloring can improve cognitive performance. In two experiments undergraduates (N = 47; N = 52) colored and participated in a control condition. Subjective and performance measures of mood and mindfulness were included: an implicit mood test (Experiment 1) and a selective attention task (Experiment 2) along with a divergent thinking test. In both experiments coloring significantly reduced anxiety and increased mindfulness compared with control and baseline scores. Following coloring participants scored significantly lower on implicit fear, than the control condition, and significantly higher on selective attention and original ideation. Coloring may not only reduce anxiety, but also improve mindful attention and creative cognition.

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