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Neural tracking of the musical beat is enhanced by low-frequency sounds

Music makes us move, and using bass instruments to build the rhythmic foundations of music is especially effective at inducing people to dance to periodic pulse-like beats. Here, we show that this culturally widespread practice may exploit a neurophysiological mechanism whereby low-frequency sounds...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Lenc, Tomas, Keller, Peter E., Varlet, Manuel, Nozaradan, Sylvie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6094140/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30037989
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1801421115
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author Lenc, Tomas
Keller, Peter E.
Varlet, Manuel
Nozaradan, Sylvie
author_facet Lenc, Tomas
Keller, Peter E.
Varlet, Manuel
Nozaradan, Sylvie
author_sort Lenc, Tomas
collection PubMed
description Music makes us move, and using bass instruments to build the rhythmic foundations of music is especially effective at inducing people to dance to periodic pulse-like beats. Here, we show that this culturally widespread practice may exploit a neurophysiological mechanism whereby low-frequency sounds shape the neural representations of rhythmic input by boosting selective locking to the beat. Cortical activity was captured using electroencephalography (EEG) while participants listened to a regular rhythm or to a relatively complex syncopated rhythm conveyed either by low tones (130 Hz) or high tones (1236.8 Hz). We found that cortical activity at the frequency of the perceived beat is selectively enhanced compared with other frequencies in the EEG spectrum when rhythms are conveyed by bass sounds. This effect is unlikely to arise from early cochlear processes, as revealed by auditory physiological modeling, and was particularly pronounced for the complex rhythm requiring endogenous generation of the beat. The effect is likewise not attributable to differences in perceived loudness between low and high tones, as a control experiment manipulating sound intensity alone did not yield similar results. Finally, the privileged role of bass sounds is contingent on allocation of attentional resources to the temporal properties of the stimulus, as revealed by a further control experiment examining the role of a behavioral task. Together, our results provide a neurobiological basis for the convention of using bass instruments to carry the rhythmic foundations of music and to drive people to move to the beat.
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spelling pubmed-60941402018-08-17 Neural tracking of the musical beat is enhanced by low-frequency sounds Lenc, Tomas Keller, Peter E. Varlet, Manuel Nozaradan, Sylvie Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Biological Sciences Music makes us move, and using bass instruments to build the rhythmic foundations of music is especially effective at inducing people to dance to periodic pulse-like beats. Here, we show that this culturally widespread practice may exploit a neurophysiological mechanism whereby low-frequency sounds shape the neural representations of rhythmic input by boosting selective locking to the beat. Cortical activity was captured using electroencephalography (EEG) while participants listened to a regular rhythm or to a relatively complex syncopated rhythm conveyed either by low tones (130 Hz) or high tones (1236.8 Hz). We found that cortical activity at the frequency of the perceived beat is selectively enhanced compared with other frequencies in the EEG spectrum when rhythms are conveyed by bass sounds. This effect is unlikely to arise from early cochlear processes, as revealed by auditory physiological modeling, and was particularly pronounced for the complex rhythm requiring endogenous generation of the beat. The effect is likewise not attributable to differences in perceived loudness between low and high tones, as a control experiment manipulating sound intensity alone did not yield similar results. Finally, the privileged role of bass sounds is contingent on allocation of attentional resources to the temporal properties of the stimulus, as revealed by a further control experiment examining the role of a behavioral task. Together, our results provide a neurobiological basis for the convention of using bass instruments to carry the rhythmic foundations of music and to drive people to move to the beat. National Academy of Sciences 2018-08-07 2018-07-23 /pmc/articles/PMC6094140/ /pubmed/30037989 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1801421115 Text en Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Biological Sciences
Lenc, Tomas
Keller, Peter E.
Varlet, Manuel
Nozaradan, Sylvie
Neural tracking of the musical beat is enhanced by low-frequency sounds
title Neural tracking of the musical beat is enhanced by low-frequency sounds
title_full Neural tracking of the musical beat is enhanced by low-frequency sounds
title_fullStr Neural tracking of the musical beat is enhanced by low-frequency sounds
title_full_unstemmed Neural tracking of the musical beat is enhanced by low-frequency sounds
title_short Neural tracking of the musical beat is enhanced by low-frequency sounds
title_sort neural tracking of the musical beat is enhanced by low-frequency sounds
topic Biological Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6094140/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30037989
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1801421115
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