Recognizing structure in novel tunes: differences between human and rats
Abstract A central feature in music is the hierarchical organization of its components. Musical pieces are not a simple concatenation of chords, but are characterized by rhythmic and harmonic structures. Here, we explore if sensitivity to music structure might emerge in the absence of any experience...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Springer
2024-03-01
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| Series: | Animal Cognition |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-024-01848-8 |
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| author | Paola Crespo-Bojorque Elodie Cauvet Christophe Pallier Juan M. Toro |
| author_facet | Paola Crespo-Bojorque Elodie Cauvet Christophe Pallier Juan M. Toro |
| author_sort | Paola Crespo-Bojorque |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract A central feature in music is the hierarchical organization of its components. Musical pieces are not a simple concatenation of chords, but are characterized by rhythmic and harmonic structures. Here, we explore if sensitivity to music structure might emerge in the absence of any experience with musical stimuli. For this, we tested if rats detect the difference between structured and unstructured musical excerpts and compared their performance with that of humans. Structured melodies were excerpts of Mozart's sonatas. Unstructured melodies were created by the recombination of fragments of different sonatas. We trained listeners (both human participants and Long-Evans rats) with a set of structured and unstructured excerpts, and tested them with completely novel excerpts they had not heard before. After hundreds of training trials, rats were able to tell apart novel structured from unstructured melodies. Human listeners required only a few trials to reach better performance than rats. Interestingly, such performance was increased in humans when tonality changes were included, while it decreased to chance in rats. Our results suggest that, with enough training, rats might learn to discriminate acoustic differences differentiating hierarchical music structures from unstructured excerpts. More importantly, the results point toward species-specific adaptations on how tonality is processed. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-eb1475b11aef48f8b7aae225f675062a |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1435-9456 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-03-01 |
| publisher | Springer |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Animal Cognition |
| spelling | doaj-art-eb1475b11aef48f8b7aae225f675062a2025-01-26T12:44:29ZengSpringerAnimal Cognition1435-94562024-03-012711910.1007/s10071-024-01848-8Recognizing structure in novel tunes: differences between human and ratsPaola Crespo-Bojorque0Elodie Cauvet1Christophe Pallier2Juan M. Toro3Universitat Pompeu FabraCognitive Neuroimaging Unit, INSERM, CEA, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin CenterCognitive Neuroimaging Unit, INSERM, CEA, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin CenterUniversitat Pompeu FabraAbstract A central feature in music is the hierarchical organization of its components. Musical pieces are not a simple concatenation of chords, but are characterized by rhythmic and harmonic structures. Here, we explore if sensitivity to music structure might emerge in the absence of any experience with musical stimuli. For this, we tested if rats detect the difference between structured and unstructured musical excerpts and compared their performance with that of humans. Structured melodies were excerpts of Mozart's sonatas. Unstructured melodies were created by the recombination of fragments of different sonatas. We trained listeners (both human participants and Long-Evans rats) with a set of structured and unstructured excerpts, and tested them with completely novel excerpts they had not heard before. After hundreds of training trials, rats were able to tell apart novel structured from unstructured melodies. Human listeners required only a few trials to reach better performance than rats. Interestingly, such performance was increased in humans when tonality changes were included, while it decreased to chance in rats. Our results suggest that, with enough training, rats might learn to discriminate acoustic differences differentiating hierarchical music structures from unstructured excerpts. More importantly, the results point toward species-specific adaptations on how tonality is processed.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-024-01848-8Music cognitionRatsRhythmTonalityFamiliarization |
| spellingShingle | Paola Crespo-Bojorque Elodie Cauvet Christophe Pallier Juan M. Toro Recognizing structure in novel tunes: differences between human and rats Animal Cognition Music cognition Rats Rhythm Tonality Familiarization |
| title | Recognizing structure in novel tunes: differences between human and rats |
| title_full | Recognizing structure in novel tunes: differences between human and rats |
| title_fullStr | Recognizing structure in novel tunes: differences between human and rats |
| title_full_unstemmed | Recognizing structure in novel tunes: differences between human and rats |
| title_short | Recognizing structure in novel tunes: differences between human and rats |
| title_sort | recognizing structure in novel tunes differences between human and rats |
| topic | Music cognition Rats Rhythm Tonality Familiarization |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-024-01848-8 |
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