Neural Correlates of Music Listening: Does the Music Matter?

The last decades have seen a proliferation of music and brain studies, with a major focus on plastic changes as the outcome of continuous and prolonged engagement with music. Thanks to the advent of neuroaesthetics, research on music cognition has broadened its scope by considering the multifarious phenomenon of listening in all its forms, including incidental listening up to the skillful attentive listening of experts, and all its possible effects. These latter range from objective and sensorial effects directly linked to the acoustic features of the music to the subjectively affective and even transformational effects for the listener. Of special importance is the finding that neural activity in the reward circuit of the brain is a key component of a conscious listening experience. We propose that the connection between music and the reward system makes music listening a gate towards not only hedonia but also eudaimonia, namely a life well lived, full of meaning that aims at realizing one’s own “daimon” or true nature. It is argued, further, that music listening, even when conceptualized in this aesthetic and eudaimonic framework, remains a learnable skill that changes the way brain structures respond to sounds and how they interact with each other

Diffusion map for clustering fMRI spatial maps extracted by independent component analysis

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) produces data about activity inside the brain, from which spatial maps can be extracted by independent component analysis (ICA). In datasets, there are n spatial maps that contain p voxels. The number of voxels is very high compared to the number of analyzed spatial maps. Clustering of the spatial maps is usually based on correlation matrices. This usually works well, although such a similarity matrix inherently can explain only a certain amount of the total variance contained in the high-dimensional data where n is relatively small but p is large. For high-dimensional space, it is reasonable to perform dimensionality reduction before clustering. In this research, we used the recently developed diffusion map for dimensionality reduction in conjunction with spectral clustering. This research revealed that the diffusion map based clustering worked as well as the more traditional methods, and produced more compact clusters when needed.Comment: 6 pages. 8 figures. Copyright (c) 2013 IEEE. Published at 2013 IEEE International Workshop on Machine Learning for Signal Processin

Music and Brain Plasticity: How Sounds Trigger Neurogenerative Adaptations

This contribution describes how music can trigger plastic changes in the brain. We elaborate on the concept of neuroplasticity by focussing on three major topics: the ontogenetic scale of musical development, the phenomenon of neuroplasticity as the outcome of interactions with the sounds and a short survey of clinical and therapeutic applications. First, a distinction is made between two scales of description: the larger evolutionary scale (phylogeny) and the scale of individual development (ontogeny). In this sense, listeners are not constrained by a static dispositional machinery, but they can be considered as dynamical systems that are able to adapt themselves in answer to the solicitations of a challenging environment. Second, the neuroplastic changes are considered both from a structural and functional level of adaptation, with a special focus on the recent findings from network science. The neural activity of the medial regions of the brain seems to become more synchronised when listening to music as compared to rest, and these changes become permanent in individuals such as musicians with year-long musical practice. As such, the question is raised as to the clinical and therapeutic applications of music as a trigger for enhancing the functionality of the brain, both in normal and impaired people

KARTESIOLAISEN KIELITEORIAN PALUU KOGNITIOTIETEESEEN

Descartesin mukaan ihmisille tyypillinen generatiivinen, hierarkkisiin representaatioihinnojaava luovuus on peräisin yhdestä lähteestä, olipa kyse luovuudesta kielen, ajattelun,matematiikan, musiikin tai visuaalisen taiteen piirissä. Tämä lähde oli jakamaton,immateriaalinen sielu. Kognitiotieteessä luovuus on perinteisesti nähty modulaarisenailmiönä, jolloin esimerkiksi kielen lauseiden rakenne poikkeaa täysin matemaattistenolioiden rakenteesta. Kukin luova järjestelmä nojaa omaan, alakohtaiseen muttageneratiiviseen representaatiojärjestelmäänsä. Aivan viime aikoina Descartesinyhden luovuuden hypoteesi on alkanut saada yhä enemmän kannatusta myöskognitiotieteessä, lingvistiikassa ja aivotutkimuksessa. Käyn artikkelissani läpi tähänkehitykseen johtaneita empiirisiä ja teoreettisia syitä, sekä tarkastelen karteesiolaisenluovuusteorian merkitystä erityisesti kielitieteen kannalta.Avainsanat: luovuus, generatiivisuus, rekursio, hierarkkiset representaatiot,minimalismiKeywords: creativity, generativity, recursion, hierarchical representations, minimalis

Clustering consistency in neuroimaging data analysis

Clustering techniques have been applied to neuroscience data analysis for decades. New algorithms keep being developed and applied to address different problems. However, when it comes to the applications of clustering, it is often hard to select the appropriate algorithm and evaluate the quality of clustering results due to the unknown ground truth. It is also the case that conclusions might be biased based on only one specific algorithm because each algorithm has its own assumption of the structure of the data, which might not be the same as the real data. In this paper, we explore the benefits of integrating the clustering results from multiple clustering algorithms by a tunable consensus clustering strategy and demonstrate the importance and necessity of consistency in neuroimaging data analysis

Is Finnish topic prominent?

Finnish finite clause exhibits topic prominence in the sense that the preverbal subject position is occupied by the topic (for example, by the direct object topic), not necessarily by the grammatical subject. Three currently unexplained facts concerning the Finnish free word order phenomenon and topicalization are noted in this paper: subject-verb agreement interacts with word order; the preverbal “topic” position is not reserved exclusively for topics; and noun phrase (DP) arguments are also able to dislocate to the right edge of a (potentially very long) finite clause. A generalized morphosyntactic agreement mechanism that requires the presence of nominal phi-features inside the highest finite projection of a clause is posited to explain the link between agreement and word order. The problem with topicality is accounted for by assuming that the topic-focus mechanism operates outside of narrow syntax. Free word order and non-configurationality are argued to result from argument adjunction, not from movement. Finally, it is concluded that the Finnish EPP is connected neither to morphosyntax nor to discourse

Structural Case Assignment and Phi-Agreement in Finnish 1

Abstract Structural Case assignment, agreement in phi-features, and the EPP-movement are related to each other. However, their exact syntactic relationship remains controversial. The matter is examined here from the point of view of Finnish morphosyntax. Finnish provides close to an ideal language for this purpose, as it has fifteen case forms and full syntactic phi-agreement on verbs (finite and nonfinite), nouns, adjectives and prepositions. In addition, Finnish exhibits certain more exotic Case assignment phenomena, among them the long distance Case assignment, quantificational Case and aspectual Case. It is argued that the recent minimalist theory of Agree provides a sound starting point to explain the phenomena, but requires certain modifications to fully capture the Finnish facts. Specifically, it will be argued that Case is not a reflex of an uninterpretable phi-set probe, as posited in the standard theory, but, instead, it is a reflex of a more abstract phi-specification feature of functional heads. In addition, locality restrictions on Agree posited in the standard theory are argued to be too strong

Cortical processing of musical pitch as reflected by behavioural and electrophysiological evidence

In a musical context, the pitch of sounds is encoded according to domain-general principles not confined to music or even to audition overall but common to other perceptual and cognitive processes (such as multiple pattern encoding and feature integration), and to domain-specific and culture-specific properties related to a particular musical system only (such as the pitch steps of the Western tonal system). The studies included in this thesis shed light on the processing stages during which pitch encoding occurs on the basis of both domain-general and music-specific properties, and elucidate the putative brain mechanisms underlying pitch-related music perception. Study I showed, in subjects without formal musical education, that the pitch and timbre of multiple sounds are integrated as unified object representations in sensory memory before attentional intervention. Similarly, multiple pattern pitches are simultaneously maintained in non-musicians' sensory memory (Study II). These findings demonstrate the degree of sophistication of pitch processing at the sensory memory stage, requiring neither attention nor any special expertise of the subjects. Furthermore, music- and culture-specific properties, such as the pitch steps of the equal-tempered musical scale, are automatically discriminated in sensory memory even by subjects without formal musical education (Studies III and IV). The cognitive processing of pitch according to culture-specific musical-scale schemata hence occurs as early as at the sensory-memory stage of pitch analysis. Exposure and cortical plasticity seem to be involved in musical pitch encoding. For instance, after only one hour of laboratory training, the neural representations of pitch in the auditory cortex are altered (Study V). However, faulty brain mechanisms for attentive processing of fine-grained pitch steps lead to inborn deficits in music perception and recognition such as those encountered in congenital amusia (Study VI). These findings suggest that predispositions for exact pitch-step discrimination together with long-term exposure to music govern the acquisition of the automatized schematic knowledge of the music of a particular culture that even non-musicians possess.Musiikkia kuunnellessa äänenkorkeuden (melodian) prosessointiin osallistuvat sekä yleiset kognitiiviset prosessit että pelkästään tietylle kulttuurille tyypilliset musiikin kuunteluun erikoistuneet prosessit. Ensin mainittuun kategoriaan kuuluvat yleiset hahmontunnistusmekanismit sekä musikaalisten piirteiden keskinäinen integraatio, jälkimmäiseen esimerkiksi länsimaisen sävelasteikkojen tunnistaminen ja niiden prosessointi. Tässä väitöskirjassa tarkastellaan sekä yleisiä että alakohtaisia musiikin prosessointiin liittyvä mekanismeja ja tarkastellaan niiden taustalla olevia aivomekanismeja. Kuudessa erillisessä käyttäytymistä ja aivojen toimintaa mittaavassa tutkimuksessa saatiin seuraavat tulokset. Äänen korkeutta ja sointia koodaavat piirteet (tutkimus I) sekä lyhyitä melodioita muodostavat sävelet (tutkimus II) yhdistetään toisiinsa sensorisessa mustissa jo ennen tietoista prosessointia. Myös musiikin kulttuuriset piirteet, kuten sävelasteikot länsimaisessa musiikissa, tunnistetaan automaattisesti sensorisessa muistissa ennen kuin ne tulevat tarkkaavaisuuteen (tutkimukset III ja IV). Muusikkojen lisäksi (tutkimus III) samat tulokset saatiin koehenkilöiltä, joilla ei ollut musiikkiin liittyvää aikaisempaa koulutusta. Tutkimuksessa V havaittiin lisäksi, että äänen korkeuteen erikoistuneet neuraaliset järjestelmät muuttuvat jo tunnin harjoittelun seurauksena, mutta toisaalta myös synnynnäisillä tekijöillä on suuri vaikutus musiikin kokemiseen (tutkimus VI). Yhdessä nämä tulokset pyrkivät kuvaamaan sitä, miten monimutkaisia äänen prosessointiin liittyviä ominaisuuksia sensorinen muisti pystyy käsittelemään riippumatta tarkkaavaisuudesta, tietoisesta prosessoinnista, tai musiikkiin liittyvästä aikaisemmasta koulutuksesta. Lisäksi tutkimus valottaa opittujen ja synnynnäisten tekijöiden vaikutuksia musiikin kokemisessa