Keeping the beat: It's all in your brain
Researchers identify neural markers related to beat synchronization

Date:
September 2, 2020
Source:
McGill University
Summary:
How do people coordinate their actions with the sounds they
hear? This basic ability, which allows people to cross the street
safely while hearing oncoming traffic, dance to new music or perform
team events such as rowing, has puzzled cognitive neuroscientists
for years. A new study is shining a light on how auditory perception
and motor processes work together.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
How do people coordinate their actions with the sounds they hear? This
basic ability, which allows people to cross the street safely while
hearing oncoming traffic, dance to new music or perform team events
such as rowing, has puzzled cognitive neuroscientists for years. A new
study led by researchers at McGill University is shining a light on how auditory perception and motor processes work together.


========================================================================== Keeping the beat -- it takes more than just moving or listening
well In a recent paper in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, the researchers, led by Caroline Palmer, a professor in McGill's Department
of Psychology, were able to identify neural markers of musicians' beat perceptions. Surprisingly, these markers did not correspond to the
musician's ability to either hear or produce a beat -- only to their
ability to synchronize with it.

"The authors, as performing musicians, are familiar with musical
situations in which one performer is not correctly aligned in time with
fellow performers - - so we were interested in exploring how musician's
brains respond to rhythms.

It could be that some people are better musicians because they listen differently or it could be that they move their bodies differently,"
explains Palmer, the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Performance, and the senior author on the paper.

"We found that the answer was a match between the pulsing or oscillations
in the brain rhythms and the pulsing of the musical rhythm -- it's
not just listening or movement. It's a linking of the brain rhythm
to the auditory rhythm." Super-synchronizers -- an exception or a
learnable skill? The researchers used electroencephalography (EEGs
involve placing electrodes on the scalp to detect electrical activity in
the brain) to measure brain activity as participants in the experiment,
all of them experienced musicians, synchronized their tapping with a
range of musical rhythms they were hearing.

By doing so they were able to identify neural markers of musicians'
beat perceptions that corresponded to their ability to synchronize well.

"We were surprised that even highly trained musicians sometimes showed
reduced ability to synchronize with complex rhythms, and that this
was reflected in their EEGs," said co-first authors Brian Mathias and
Anna Zamm, both PhD students in the Palmer lab. "Most musicians are
good synchronizers; nonetheless, this signal was sensitive enough to distinguish the "good" from the "better" or "super-synchronizers,"
as we sometimes call them." It's not clear whether anyone can become
a super-synchronizer, but according to Palmer, the lead researcher,
it may be possible to improve ones ability to synchronize.

"The range of musicians we sampled suggests that the answer would be
yes. And the fact that only 2-3 % of the population are 'beat deaf'
is also encouraging.

Practice definitely improves your ability and improves the alignment
of the brain rhythms with the musical rhythms. But whether everyone is
going to be as good as a drummer is not clear."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by McGill_University. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Brian Mathias, Anna Zamm, Pierre G. Gianferrara, Bernhard Ross,
Caroline
Palmer. Rhythm Complexity Modulates Behavioral and Neural Dynamics
During Auditory-Motor Synchronization. Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience, 2020; 32 (10): 1864 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01601 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200902091125.htm

--- up 1 week, 2 days, 6 hours, 50 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1337:3/111)