20 research outputs found
Music adapting to the brain: From diffusion chains to neurophysiology
During the last decade, the use of experimental approaches on cultural evolution
research has provided novel insights, and supported theoretical predictions, on the
principles driving the evolution of human cultural systems. Laboratory simulations of
language evolution showed how general-domain constraints on learning, in addition to
pressures for language to be expressive, may be responsible for the emergence of
linguistic structure. Languages change when culturally transmitted, adapting to fit,
among all, the cognitive abilities of their users. As a result, they become regular and
compressed, easier to acquire and reproduce. Although a similar theory has been
recently extended to the musical domain, the empirical investigation in this field is still
scarce. In addition, no study to our knowledge directly addressed the role of cognitive
constraints in cultural transmission with neurophysiological investigation.
In my thesis I addressed both these issues with a combination of behavioral and
neurophysiological methods, in three experimental studies. In study 1 (Chapter 2), I
examined the evolution of structural regularities in artificial melodic systems while they
were being transmitted across individuals via coordination and alignment. To this
purpose I used a new laboratory model of music transmission: the multi-generational
signaling games (MGSGs), a variant of the signaling games. This model combines
classical aspects of lab-based semiotic models of communication, coordination and
interaction (horizontal transmission), with the vertical transmission across generations
of the iterated learning model (vertical transmission). Here, two-person signaling games
are organized in diffusion chains of several individuals (generations). In each game, the
two players (a sender and a receiver) must agree on a common code - here a miniature
system where melodic riffs refer to emotions. The receiver in one game becomes the
sender in the next game, possibly retransmitting the code previously learned to another
generation of participants, and so on to complete the diffusion chain. I observed the
gradual evolution of several structures features of musical phrases over generations:
proximity, continuity, symmetry, and melodic compression. Crucially, these features
are found in most of musical cultures of the world. I argue that we tapped into universal
processing mechanisms of structured sequence processing, possibly at work in the
evolution of real music. In study 2 (Chapter 3), I explored the link between cultural
adaptation and neural information processing. To this purpose, I combined behavioral
and EEG study on 2 successive days. I show that the latency of the mismatch negativity (MMN) recorded in a pre-attentive auditory sequence processing task on day 1, predicts
how well participants learn and transmit an artificial tone system with affective
semantics in two signaling games on day 2. Notably, MMN latencies also predict which
structural changes are introduced by participants into the artificial tone system. In study
3 (Chapter 4), I replicated and extended behavioral and neurophysiological findings on
the temporal domain of music, with two independent experiments. In the first
experiment, I used MGSGs as a laboratory model of cultural evolution of rhythmic
equitone patterns referring to distinct emotions. As a result of transmission, rhythms
developed a universal property of music structure, namely temporal regularity (or
isochronicity). In the second experiment, I anchored this result with neural predictors. I
showed that neural information processing capabilities of individuals, as measured with
the MMN on day 1, can predict learning, transmission, and regularization of rhythmic
patterns in signaling games on day 2. In agreement with study 2, I observe that MMN
brain timing may reflect the efficiency of sensory systems to process auditory patterns.
Functional differences in those systems, across individuals, may produce a different
sensitivity to pressures for regularities in the cultural system. Finally, I argue that neural
variability can be an important source of variability of cultural traits in a population.
My work is the first to systematically describe the emergence of structural properties of
melodic and rhythmic systems in the laboratory, using an explicit game-theoretic model
of cultural transmission in which agents freely interact and exchange information.
Critically, it provides the first demonstration that social learning, transmission, and
cultural adaptation are constrained and driven by individual differences in the functional
organization of sensory systems
Extracting human cortical responses to sound onsets and acoustic feature changes in real music, and their relation to event rate
Evoked cortical responses (ERs) have mainly been studied in controlled experiments using simplified stimuli. Though, an outstanding question is how the human cortex responds to the complex stimuli encountered in realistic situations. Few electroencephalography (EEG) studies have used Music Information Retrieval (MIR) tools to extract cortical P1/N1/P2 to acoustical changes in real music. However, less than ten events per music piece could be detected leading to ERs due to limitations in automatic detection of sound onsets. Also, the factors influencing a successful extraction of the ERs have not been identified. Finally, previous studies did not localize the sources of the cortical generators. This study is based on an EEG/MEG dataset from 48 healthy normal hearing participants listening to three real music pieces. Acoustic features were computed from the audio signal of the music with the MIR Toolbox. To overcome limits in automatic methods, sound onsets were also manually detected. The chance of obtaining detectable ERs based on ten randomly picked onset points was less than 1:10,000. For the first time, we show that naturalistic P1/N1/P2 ERs can be reliably measured across 100 manually identified sound onsets, substantially improving the signal-to-noise level compared to 2.5 Hz). Furthermore, during monophonic sections of the music only P1/P2 were measurable, and during polyphonic sections only N1. Finally, MEG source analysis revealed that naturalistic P2 is located in core areas of the auditory cortex.Peer reviewe
Interhemispheric Brain Communication and the Evolution of Turn-Taking in Mammals
In the last 20 years, research on turn-taking and duetting has flourished in at least three, historically separate disciplines: animal behavior, language sciences, and music cognition. While different in scope and methods, all three ultimately share one goal—namely the understanding of timed interactions among conspecifics. In this perspective, we aim at connecting turn-taking and duetting across species from a neural perspective. While we are still far from a defined neuroethology of turn-taking, we argue that the human neuroscience of turn-taking and duetting can inform animal bioacoustics. For this, we focus on a particular concept, interhemispheric connectivity, and its main white-matter substrate, the corpus callosum. We provide an overview of the role of corpus callosum in human neuroscience and interactive music and speech. We hypothesize its mechanistic connection to turn-taking and duetting in our species, and a potential translational link to mammalian research. We conclude by illustrating empirical venues for neuroethological research of turn-taking and duetting in mammals
A Systematic Error in the Internal Friction Measurement of Coatings for Gravitational Waves Detectors
Low internal friction coatings are key components of advanced technologies
such as optical atomic clocks and high-finesse optical cavity and often lie at
the forefront of the most advanced experiments in Physics. Notably, increasing
the sensitivity of gravitational-wave detectors depends in a very large part on
developing new coatings, which entails developing more suitable methods and
models to investigate their loss angle. In fact, the most sensitive region of
the detection band in such detectors is limited by the coating thermal noise,
which is related to the loss angle of the coating. Until now, models which
describe only ideal physical properties have been adopted, wondering about the
use of one or more loss angles to describe the mechanical properties of
coatings. Here we show the presence of a systematic error ascribed to
inhomogeneity of the sample at its edges in measuring the coating loss angle.
We present a model for disk-shaped resonators, largely used in loss angle
measurements, and we compare the theory with measurements showing how this
systematic error impacts on the accuracy with which the loss model parameters
are known
Cultural transmission and evolution of melodic structures in multi-generational signaling games
It has been proposed that languages evolve by adapting to the perceptual and cognitive constraints of the human brain, developing, in the course of cultural transmission, structural regularities that maximize or optimize learnability and ease of processing. To what extent would perceptual and cognitive constraints similarly affect the evolution of musical systems? We conducted an experiment on the cultural evolution of artificial melodic systems, using multi-generational signaling games as a laboratory model of cultural transmission. Signaling systems, using five-tone sequences as signals, and basic and compound emotions as meanings, were transmitted from senders to receivers along diffusion chains in which the receiver in each game became the sender in the next game. During transmission, structural regularities accumulated in the signaling systems, following principles of proximity, symmetry, and good continuation. Although the compositionality of signaling systems did not increase significantly across generations, we did observe a significant increase in similarity among signals from the same set. We suggest that our experiment tapped into the cognitive and perceptual constraints operative in the cultural evolution of musical systems, which may differ from the mechanisms at play in language evolution and change
Cultural Transmission and Evolution of Melodic Structures in Multi-generational Signaling Games
Music Evolution in the Laboratory: Cultural Transmission Meets Neurophysiology
In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the biological and cultural evolution of music, and specifically in the role played by perceptual and cognitive factors in shaping core features of musical systems, such as melody, harmony, and rhythm. One proposal originates in the language sciences. It holds that aspects of musical systems evolve by adapting gradually, in the course of successive generations, to the structural and functional characteristics of the sensory and memory systems of learners and “users” of music. This hypothesis has found initial support in laboratory experiments on music transmission. In this article, we first review some of the most important theoretical and empirical contributions to the field of music evolution. Next, we identify a major current limitation of these studies, i.e., the lack of direct neural support for the hypothesis of cognitive adaptation. Finally, we discuss a recent experiment in which this issue was addressed by using event-related potentials (ERPs). We suggest that the introduction of neurophysiology in cultural transmission research may provide novel insights on the micro-evolutionary origins of forms of variation observed in cultural systems
Music Evolution in the Laboratory: Cultural Transmission Meets Neurophysiology
In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the biological and cultural evolution of music, and specifically in the role played by perceptual and cognitive factors in shaping core features of musical systems, such as melody, harmony, and rhythm. One proposal originates in the language sciences. It holds that aspects of musical systems evolve by adapting gradually, in the course of successive generations, to the structural and functional characteristics of the sensory and memory systems of learners and “users” of music. This hypothesis has found initial support in laboratory experiments on music transmission. In this article, we first review some of the most important theoretical and empirical contributions to the field of music evolution. Next, we identify a major current limitation of these studies, i.e., the lack of direct neural support for the hypothesis of cognitive adaptation. Finally, we discuss a recent experiment in which this issue was addressed by using event-related potentials (ERPs). We suggest that the introduction of neurophysiology in cultural transmission research may provide novel insights on the micro-evolutionary origins of forms of variation observed in cultural systems