Understanding the Processing of Tonal Modulations During Musical Listening Using Behavioural and Neural Techniques
Year: 2019
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The series of experiments presented in this dissertation elucidates the perceptual and cognitive processing of tonal modulations during musical listening using behavioural measures and electroencephalography (EEG). The purpose of these experiments was to shed light on mechanisms of working memory pertaining to the management of competing activated schemata. The experiments utilized an adaptation of the harmonic priming paradigm typically used in the music cognition literature to study the facilitation of stimulus processing resulting from top-down expectancies generated by a musical stimulus’ tonal structure. Musicians and non-musicians were presented with extended primes containing two equally represented tonalities, and subsequent targets that were related exclusively to the first tonality presented in the prime, exclusively to the second tonality presented in the prime, or neither tonality. Participants provided subjective judgements of target fit (i.e., “fit” versus “does not fit” with the preceding prime), as well as ratings of the degree of fit using a scale from 1-7. The results of the reaction time analyses generally replicated previous studies of tonal modulations, demonstrating that the activation of an original tonality decays rapidly once a new tonality is introduced, as reaction times were equivalent for targets related to versus unrelated to the original key. However, the results of the ratings of fit showed that although an original tonality may not be activated and readily available in working memory at target onset, when given sufficient time, participants are able to retrieve relevant priming information to guide their responses. Additionally, the results of the EEG analyses corroborated the findings of the reaction time analyses, as event related potentials typically elicited by unrelated targets (such as the early right anterior negativity [ERAN], the N500 or late positive component [LPC]) were not elicited for contrasts between targets related to the original key and unrelated targets.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Olivia Podolak Lewandowska
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2996797990