Review on eye-hand span in sight-reading of music

In a sight-reading task, the position of the eyes on the score is generally further ahead than the note being produced by the instrument. This anticipation allows musicians to identify the upcoming notes and possible difficulties and to plan their gestures accordingly. The eye-hand span (EHS) corresponds to this offset between the eye and the hand and measures the distance or latency between an eye fixation on the score and the production of the note on the instrument. While EHS is mostly quite short, the variation in its size can depend on multiple factors. EHS increases in line with the musician's expertise level, diminishes as a function of the complexity of the score and can vary depending on the context in which it is played. By summarizing the main factors that affect EHS and the methodologies used in this field of study, the present review of the literature highlights the fact that a) to ensure effective sight reading, the EHS must be adaptable and optimized in size (neither too long not too short), with the best sight readers exhibiting a high level of perceptual flexibility in adapting their span to the complexity of the score; b) it is important to interpret EHS in the light of the specificities of the score, given that it varies so much both within and between scores; and c) the flexibility of EHS can be a good indicator of the perceptual and cognitive capacities of musicians, showing that a musician's gaze can be attracted early by a complexity in a still distant part of the score. These various points are discussed in the light of the literature on music-reading expertise. Promising avenues of research using the eye tracking method are proposed in order to further our knowledge of the construction of an expertise that requires multisensory integration

Empirical evidence for musical syntax processing? Computer simulations reveal the contribution of auditory short-term memory

During the last decade, it has been argued that (1) music processing involves syntactic representations similar to those observed in language, and (2) that music and language share similar syntactic-like processes and neural resources. This claim is important for understanding the origin of music and language abilities and, furthermore, it has clinical implications. The Western musical system, however, is rooted in psychoacoustic properties of sound, and this is not the case for linguistic syntax. Accordingly, musical syntax processing could be parsimoniously understood as an emergent property of auditory memory rather than a property of abstract processing similar to linguistic processing. To support this view, we simulated numerous empirical studies that investigated the processing of harmonic structures, using a model based on the accumulation of sensory information in auditory memory. The simulations revealed that most of the musical syntax manipulations used with behavioral and neurophysiological methods as well as with developmental and cross-cultural approaches can be accounted for by the auditory memory model. This led us to question whether current research on musical syntax can really be compared with linguistic processing. Our simulation also raises methodological and theoretical challenges to study musical syntax while disentangling the confounded low-level sensory influences. In order to investigate syntactic abilities in music comparable to language, research should preferentially use musical material with structures that circumvent the tonal effect exerted by psychoacoustic properties of sounds

A meta-analysis on the effect of expertise on eye movements during music reading

The current meta-analysis was conducted on 12 studies comparing the eye movements of expert versus non-expert musicians and attempted to determine which eye movement measures are expertise dependent during music reading. The total dataset of 61 comparisons was divided into four subsets, each concerning one eye-movement variable (i.e., fixation duration, number of fixations, saccade amplitude, and gaze duration). We used a variance estimation method to aggregate the effect sizes. The results support the robust finding of reduced fixation duration in expert musicians (Subset 1, g = -0.72). Due to low statistical power because of limited effect sizes, the results on the number of fixations, saccade amplitude, and gaze duration were not reliable. We conducted meta-regression analyses to determine potential moderators of the effect of expertise on eye movements (i.e., definition of experimental groups, type of musical task performed, type of musical material used or tempo control). Moderator analyses did not yield any reliable results. The need for consistency in the experimental methodology is discussed. *The first two authors equally contributed to the first authorshi

Alterations of EEG rhythms during motor preparation following awake brain surgery

International audienceSlow-growing, infiltrative brain tumours may modify the electrophysiological balance between the two hemispheres. To determine whether and how asymmetry of EEG rhythms during motor preparation might occur following " awake brain surgery " for this type of tumour, we recorded electroencephalograms during a simple visuo-manual reaction time paradigm performed by the patients between 3 and 12 months after surgery and compared them to a control group of 8 healthy subjects. Frequency analyses revealed imbalances between the injured and healthy hemispheres. More particularly, we observed a power increase in the δ frequency band near the lesion site and a power increase in the α and β frequency bands. Interestingly, these alterations seem to decrease for the two patients whose surgery were anterior to 9 months, independently of the size of the lesion. Reaction times did not reflect this pattern as they were clearly not inversely related to the anteriority of the surgery. Electrophysiology suggests here different processes of recovery compared to behavioral data and brings further insights for the understanding of EEG rhythms that should not be systematically confounded or assimilated with cognitive performances. EEG monitoring is rare for these patients, especially after awake brain surgery, however it is important

Does a non-practiced cognitive automatism withstand the test of time?

International audienceThe present study aimed to ascertain whether the automaticity of a learned-cognitive process persisted after lengthy and complete cessation of practice. The musical Stroop paradigm offers the opportunity to test this specific question by evaluating the automaticity of note naming, the flexibility in manipulating practice of which is much greater than that of other cognitive automatisms like reading. Participants who previously attained a high level of musical expertise and ceased all musical practice for at least 3 years exhibited a musical Stroop effect, which attests to the automaticity of note naming. The musical Stroop effect was still observed in a subset of participants who completely ceased musical practice for more than 10 years. Our results suggest that the absence of practice, even over a very long period of time, does not eliminate the automaticity of cognitive processes

Étudier les attentes musicales de l’auditeur non musicien : le paradigme d’amorçage musical

Investigating Musical Expectations of Non-Musician Listeners : The Musical Priming Paradigm. Western listeners become sensitive to the regularities of the Western tonal system by mere exposure to musical pieces. The implicitly acquired tonal knowledge allows listeners to develop musical expectations for future events of a musical sequence. These expectations play a role for musical expressivity and influence the processing of musical events. The musical priming paradigm is an indirect investigation method that allows studying listeners’ tonal knowledge and the influence of musical expectations on processing speed of musical events. Behavioral data sets have shown that the processing of a musical event is facilitated when it is tonally related (and supposed to be “ expected”) in comparison to when it is unrelated or less-related to the preceding tonal context. Neurophysiological data sets have shown that the processing of a less-expected event requires more neural resources than the processing of more prototypical musical structures. For example, studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging have reported increased activation in the inferior frontal cortex for unexpected musical events. Studying musical expectations – as an example of processing complex, non-verbal acoustic structures – contributes to a better understanding of the processes underlying the acquisition of implicit knowledge about our auditory environment as well as about the influence of this knowledge on perception.L’auditeur occidental devient sensible aux régularités du système musical tonal par simple exposition aux pièces musicales. Les connaissances implicites ainsi acquises permettent à l’auditeur de développer des attentes musicales sur les événements à venir. Ces attentes jouent un rôle dans l’expressivité musicale, mais elles influencent également le traitement des événements musicaux. Le paradigme d’amorçage musical est une méthode indirecte qui permet d’étudier les connaissances tonales de l’auditeur ainsi que l’influence des attentes musicales sur la vitesse de traitement. Des données comportementales montrent que le traitement d’un événement musical est facilité lorsqu’il est relié (et donc supposé être «attendu » ) plutôt que non-relié ou moins relié au contexte musical qui le précède. Les données neurophysiologiques montrent que le traitement d’un événement moins attendu nécessite plus de ressources neuronales qu’une structure musicale plus prototypique, notamment des études d''imagerie cérébrale montrent des activations plus fortes dans le cortex frontal inférieur. Dans l''ensemble, les recherches présentées montrent que l''étude des attentes musicales contribue, avec l''exemple d''une structure acoustique complexe non-verbale, à mieux comprendre comment les connaissances que notre cerveau acquière implicitement sur notre environnement influencent notre perception.Tillmann Barbara, Poulin-Charronnat Bénédicte. Étudier les attentes musicales de l’auditeur non musicien : le paradigme d’amorçage musical. In: Intellectica. Revue de l'Association pour la Recherche Cognitive, n°48-49, 2008/1-2. Musique et Cognition. pp. 27-35

Mémoire et apprentissage

International audienc

Les interactions entre les traitements de la musique et du langage

International audienceAlors même que la musique et le langage sont deux systèmes qui présentent de prime abord des différences évidentes, ils possèdent, au-delà de ces différences, des similitudes importantes. La musique comme le langage, est un système complexe spécifique à l’être humain, dans lequel des éléments discrets organisés temporellement conduisent à l’émergence de régularités qui peuvent être apprises implicitement par le système cognitif. Ces similitudes ont conduit la recherche en cognition musicale à s’intéresser aux relations entre les traitements de lamusique et du langage, et à étudier si ces deux systèmes partageaient des processus cognitifs et neuronaux communs

Effet d'expertise sur le traitement des structures musicales

L'objectif de ce travail de thèse est d'évaluer comment la perception des structures musicales change en fonction de l'expertise des auditeurs. Une première série de quatre études utilisant le paradigme d'amorçage harmonique montre que les auditeurs musiciens et non-musiciens réagissent de manière identique aux facteurs manipulés et notamment, qu'ils sont plus sensibles aux manipulations cognitives qu'acoustiques. Ce premier résultat démontre que les auditeurs possèdent des connaissances sur le système tonal occidental, et ce, indépendamment de leur niveau d'expertise. Une cinquième étude a alors spécifiquement évalué l'expertise musicale en tentant de répliquer un effet largement observé dans les recherches sur les effets d'expertise. Une nouvelle absence de différence entre les musiciens et les non-musiciens laisse penser que non seulement, la musique s'acquiert par des procédures d'apprentissage implicite, mais qu'en plus, sa perception implique des processus qui sont eux-mêmes implicites. Dans une sixième étude, l'apprentissage implicite des régularités sous-jacentes à un nouveau système musical a été mis en évidence chez des auditeurs musiciens et non-musiciens. Il apparait que ces caractéristiques d'apprentissage et de traitement implicite de la musique sont similaires à celles du langage. Les deux dernières études ont mis en évidence des interactions entre musique et langage suggérant que notre cerveau, par parcimonie, pourrait utiliser des processus cognitifs identiques pour traiter les informations provenant de systèmes similaires.The purpose of the present thesis is to evaluate how the perception of musical structures changes according to the expertise of the listeners. A first set of four experiments using the harmonic priming paradigm shows that the listeners, musicians and non-musicians, behave in an identical way in response to the factors manipulated, and notably that they are more sensitive to the cognitive than to the acoustic manipulations. This first result demonstrates that the listeners possess knowledge of the Western tonal system, and independently of their degree of expertise. A fifth study has then specifically evaluated the musical expertise effect. Once again, an absence of difference between musicians and non-musicians suggest that not only music is something acquired by implicit learning procedures but in addition that the perception of music implies cognitive processes that are themselves implicit. In a sixth study, the implicit learning of regularities underlying a new musical system was shown in both musicians and non-musicians. It appears that the implicit characteristic of learning and processing of music are similar to those of language. The two last studies have shown interactions between language and music, suggesting that our brain, by parsimony, could have identical cognitive processes to treat information coming from similar systems.DIJON-BU Droit Lettres (212312101) / SudocSudocFranceF