Music Familiarity Affects EEG Entrainment When Little Attention Is Paid

To investigate the brain's response to music, many researchers have examined cortical entrainment in relation to periodic tunes, periodic beats, and music. Music familiarity is another factor that affects cortical entrainment, and electroencephalogram (EEG) studies have shown that stronger entrainment occurs while listening to unfamiliar music than while listening to familiar music. In the present study, we hypothesized that not only the level of familiarity but also the level of attention affects the level of entrainment. We simultaneously presented music and a silent movie to participants and we recorded an EEG while participants paid attention to either the music or the movie in order to investigate whether cortical entrainment is related to attention and music familiarity. The average cross-correlation function across channels, trials, and participants exhibited a pronounced positive peak at time lags around 130 ms and a negative peak at time lags around 260 ms. The statistical analysis of the two peaks revealed that the level of attention did not affect the level of entrainment, and, moreover, that in both the auditory-active and visual-active conditions, the entrainment level is stronger when listening to unfamiliar music than when listening to familiar music. This may indicate that the familiarity with music affects cortical activities when attention is not fully devoted to listening to music

Familiarity Affects Entrainment of EEG in Music Listening

Music perception involves complex brain functions. The relationship between music and brain such as cortical entrainment to periodic tune, periodic beat, and music have been well investigated. It has also been reported that the cerebral cortex responded more strongly to the periodic rhythm of unfamiliar music than to that of familiar music. However, previous works mainly used simple and artificial auditory stimuli like pure tone or beep. It is still unclear how the brain response is influenced by the familiarity of music. To address this issue, we analyzed electroencelphalogram (EEG) to investigate the relationship between cortical response and familiarity of music using melodies produced by piano sounds as simple natural stimuli. The cross-correlation function averaged across trials, channels, and participants showed two pronounced peaks at time lags around 70 ms and 140 ms. At the two peaks the magnitude of the cross-correlation values were significantly larger when listening to unfamiliar and scrambled music compared to those when listening to familiar music. Our findings suggest that the response to unfamiliar music is stronger than that to familiar music. One potential application of our findings would be the discrimination of listeners’ familiarity with music, which provides an important tool for assessment of brain activity

Familiarity Affects Entrainment of EEG in Music Listening

Music perception involves complex brain functions. The relationship between music and brain such as cortical entrainment to periodic tune, periodic beat, and music have been well investigated. It has also been reported that the cerebral cortex responded more strongly to the periodic rhythm of unfamiliar music than to that of familiar music. However, previous works mainly used simple and artificial auditory stimuli like pure tone or beep. It is still unclear how the brain response is influenced by the familiarity of music. To address this issue, we analyzed electroencelphalogram (EEG) to investigate the relationship between cortical response and familiarity of music using melodies produced by piano sounds as simple natural stimuli. The cross-correlation function averaged across trials, channels, and participants showed two pronounced peaks at time lags around 70 and 140 ms. At the two peaks the magnitude of the cross-correlation values were significantly larger when listening to unfamiliar and scrambled music compared to those when listening to familiar music. Our findings suggest that the response to unfamiliar music is stronger than that to familiar music. One potential application of our findings would be the discrimination of listeners' familiarity with music, which provides an important tool for assessment of brain activity