Vesa Putkinen

Informal musical activities are linked to auditory discrimination and attention in 2–3‐year‐old children: an event‐related potential study

The relation between informal musical activities at home and electrophysiological indices of neural auditory change detection was investigated in 2–3‐year‐old children. Auditory event‐related potentials were recorded in a multi‐feature paradigm that included frequency, duration, intensity, direction, gap deviants and attention‐catching novel sounds. Correlations were calculated between these responses and the amount of musical activity at home (i.e. musical play by the child and parental singing) reported by the parents. A higher overall amount of informal musical activity was associated with larger P3as elicited by the gap and duration deviants, and smaller late discriminative negativity responses elicited by all deviant types. Furthermore, more musical activities were linked to smaller P3as elicited by the novel sounds, whereas more paternal singing was associated with smaller reorienting negativity responses to these sounds. These results imply heightened sensitivity to temporal acoustic changes, more mature auditory change detection, and less distractibility in children with more informal musical activities in their home environment. Our results highlight the significance of informal musical experiences in enhancing the development of highly important auditory abilities in early childhood.

Investigating the effects of musical training on functional brain development with a novel Melodic MMN paradigm

Sensitivity to changes in various musical features was investigated by recording the mismatch negativity (MMN) auditory event-related potential (ERP) in musically trained and nontrained children semi-longitudinally at the ages of 9, 11, and 13 years. The responses were recorded using a novel Melodic multi-feature paradigm which allows fast (<15 min) recording of an MMN profile for changes in melody, rhythm, musical key, timbre, tuning and timing. When compared to the nontrained children, the musically trained children displayed enlarged MMNs for the melody modulations by the age 13 and for the rhythm modulations, timbre deviants and slightly mistuned tones already at the age of 11. Also, a positive mismatch response elicited by delayed tones was larger in amplitude in the musically trained than in the nontrained children at age 13. No group differences were found at the age 9 suggesting that the later enhancement of the MMN in the musically trained children resulted from training and not pre-existing difference between the groups. The current study demonstrates the applicability of the Melodic multi-feature paradigm in school-aged children and indicates that musical training enhances auditory discrimination for musically central sound dimensions in pre-adolescence.

Fast Measurement of Auditory Event-Related Potential Profiles in 2–3-Year-Olds

Auditory discrimination, memory, and attention-related functions were investigated in healthy 2–3-year-olds by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) to changes in five auditory features and two types of novel sounds using the fast multifeature paradigm (MFP). ERP profiles consisting of the mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a, and prominent late discriminative negativities (LDN) were obtained, for the first time, from this age group in a considerably shorter time compared to the traditional paradigms. Statistically significant responses from individual children were obtained mainly for the novel sounds. Thus, the MFP shows promise as a time-efficient paradigm for investigating central auditory functions in toddlers.

The neural basis of sublexical speech and corresponding nonspeech processing: a combined EEG-MEG study.

We addressed the neural organization of speech versus nonspeech sound processing by investigating preattentive cortical auditory processing of changes in five features of a consonant-vowel syllable (consonant, vowel, sound duration, frequency, and intensity) and their acoustically matched nonspeech counterparts in a simultaneous EEG-MEG recording of mismatch negativity (MMN/MMNm). Overall, speech-sound processing was enhanced compared to nonspeech sound processing. This effect was strongest for changes which affect word meaning (consonant, vowel, and vowel duration) in the left and for the vowel identity change in the right hemisphere also. Furthermore, in the right hemisphere, speech-sound frequency and intensity changes were processed faster than their nonspeech counterparts, and there was a trend for speech-enhancement in frequency processing. In summary, the results support the proposed existence of long-term memory traces for speech sounds in the auditory cortices, and indicate at least partly distinct neural substrates for speech and nonspeech sound processing.

Do informal musical activities shape auditory skill development in preschool-age children?

The influence of formal musical training on auditory cognition has been well established. For the majority of children, however, musical experience does not primarily consist of adult-guided training on a musical instrument. Instead, young children mostly engage in everyday musical activities such as singing and musical play. Here, we review recent electrophysiological and behavioral studies carried out in our laboratory and elsewhere which have begun to map how developing auditory skills are shaped by such informal musical activities both at home and in playschool-type settings. Although more research is still needed, the evidence emerging from these studies suggests that, in addition to formal musical training, informal musical activities can also influence the maturation of auditory discrimination and attention in preschool-aged children.

Promises of formal and informal musical activities in advancing neurocognitive development throughout childhood.

Adult musicians show superior neural sound discrimination when compared to nonmusicians. However, it is unclear whether these group differences reflect the effects of experience or preexisting neural enhancement in individuals who seek out musical training. Tracking how brain function matures over time in musically trained and nontrained children can shed light on this issue. Here, we review our recent longitudinal event‐related potential (ERP) studies that examine how formal musical training and less formal musical activities influence the maturation of brain responses related to sound discrimination and auditory attention. These studies found that musically trained school‐aged children and preschool‐aged children attending a musical playschool show more rapid maturation of neural sound discrimination than their control peers. Importantly, we found no evidence for pretraining group differences. In a related cross‐sectional study, we found ERP and behavioral evidence for improved executive functions and control over auditory novelty processing in musically trained school‐aged children and adolescents. Taken together, these studies provide evidence for the causal role of formal musical training and less formal musical activities in shaping the development of important neural auditory skills and suggest transfer effects with domain‐general implications.

Brain Research Reveals Automatic Musical Memory Functions in Children

Even though music has special meanings and values compared to other sounds, it is nonetheless processed in the brain via partly the same neural networks that are built to process all kinds of sounds. The development of these brain areas depends on the input: on the sounds that a child is exposed to and chooses to attend to. We present two brain research paradigms that can be used to assess the specialization of the brain for musical sounds, and show promising results with these paradigms in a group of young children who have music as their hobby.

Brain responses to surprising sounds are related to temperament and parent–child dyadic synchrony in young children

This study investigated the relationship between temperament characteristics, parent-child dyadic synchrony and auditory event-related potentials (ERP) in 15 two-year-old children. Temperament was assessed with the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire, and parent-child dyadic synchrony was analyzed from video-taped play situations. Involuntary switching of attention toward surprising sounds was measured with auditory ERPs by quantifying the P3a response for repeated and nonrepeated novel, naturally varying sounds, presented in a continuous repetitive sound sequence. Lower negative emotionality, higher effortful control and higher dyadic synchrony were associated with larger P3a responses to repeated novel sounds. The results demonstrate that temperament is related to P3a responses in early childhood, and that parent-child synchrony associates with both temperament and P3a responses in a theoretically meaningful way.

Quantity language speakers show enhanced subcortical processing

The complex auditory brainstem response (cABR) can reflect language-based plasticity in subcortical stages of auditory processing. It is sensitive to differences between language groups as well as stimulus properties, e.g. intensity or frequency. It is also sensitive to the synchronicity of the neural population stimulated by sound, which results in increased amplitude of wave V. Finnish is a full-fledged quantity language, in which word meaning is dependent upon duration of the vowels and consonants. Previous studies have shown that Finnish speakers have enhanced behavioural sound duration discrimination ability and larger cortical mismatch negativity (MMN) to duration change compared to German and French speakers. The next step is to find out whether these enhanced duration discrimination abilities of quantity language speakers originate at the brainstem level. Since German has a complementary quantity contrast which restricts the possible patterns of short and long vowels and consonants, the current experiment compared cABR between nonmusician Finnish and German native speakers using seven short complex stimuli. Finnish speakers had a larger cABR peak amplitude than German speakers, while the peak onset latency was only affected by stimulus intensity and spectral band. The results suggest that early cABR responses are better synchronised for Finns, which could underpin the enhanced duration sensitivity of quantity language speakers.

An integrative review of the enjoyment of sadness associated with music

The recent surge of interest towards the paradoxical pleasure produced by sad music has generated a handful of theories and an array of empirical explorations on the topic. However, none of these have attempted to weigh the existing evidence in a systematic fashion. The present work puts forward an integrative framework laid out over three levels of explanation - biological, psycho-social, and cultural - to compare and integrate the existing findings in a meaningful way. First, we review the evidence pertinent to experiences of pleasure associated with sad music from the fields of neuroscience, psychophysiology, and endocrinology. Then, the psychological and interpersonal mechanisms underlying the recognition and induction of sadness in the context of music are combined with putative explanations ranging from social surrogacy and nostalgia to feelings of being moved. Finally, we address the cultural aspects of the paradox - the extent to which it is embedded in the Western notion of music as an aesthetic, contemplative object - by synthesising findings from history, ethnography, and empirical studies. Furthermore, we complement these explanations by considering the particularly significant meanings that sadness portrayed in art can evoke in some perceivers. Our central claim is that one cannot attribute the enjoyment of sadness fully to any one of these levels, but to a chain of functionalities afforded by each level. Each explanatory level has several putative explanations and its own shift towards positive valence, but none of them deliver the full transformation from a highly negative experience to a fully enjoyable experience alone. The current evidence within this framework ranges from weak to non-existent at the biological level, moderate at the psychological level, and suggestive at the cultural level. We propose a series of focussed topics for future investigation that would allow to deconstruct the drivers and constraints of the processes leading to pleasurable music-related sadness.