Neural Correlates of Timbre Change in Harmonic Sounds

Neural Correlates of Timbre Change in Harmonic Sounds

Timbre is a major structuring force in music and one of the most important and ecologically relevant features of auditory events. We used sound stimuli selected on the basis of previous psychophysiological studies to investigate the neural correlates of timbre perception. Our results indicate that b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:NeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.) Vol. 17; no. 4; pp. 1742 - 1754
Main Authors: Menon, V., Levitin, D.J., Smith, B.K., Lembke, A., Krasnow, B.D., Glazer, D., Glover, G.H., McAdams, S.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01-12-2002
Elsevier Limited
Subjects:
Adult
Attention - physiology
Brain Mapping
Cerebral Cortex - anatomy & histology
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Dominance, Cerebral - physiology
Female
fMRI
Fourier Analysis
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Imaging, Three-Dimensional
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Middle Aged
middle temporal gyrus
Music
Nerve Net - anatomy & histology
Nerve Net - physiology
Pitch Discrimination - physiology
Sound Spectrography
superior temporal gyrus
superior temporal sulcus
temporal lobe
Temporal Lobe - anatomy & histology
Temporal Lobe - physiology
timbre
timbre
fMRI
superior temporal sulcus
temporal lobe
middle temporal gyrus
superior temporal gyrus
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Summary:Timbre is a major structuring force in music and one of the most important and ecologically relevant features of auditory events. We used sound stimuli selected on the basis of previous psychophysiological studies to investigate the neural correlates of timbre perception. Our results indicate that both the left and right hemispheres are involved in timbre processing, challenging the conventional notion that the elementary attributes of musical perception are predominantly lateralized to the right hemisphere. Significant timbre-related brain activation was found in well-defined regions of posterior Heschl's gyrus and superior temporal sulcus, extending into the circular insular sulcus. Although the extent of activation was not significantly different between left and right hemispheres, temporal lobe activations were significantly posterior in the left, compared to the right, hemisphere, suggesting a functional asymmetry in their respective contributions to timbre processing. The implications of our findings for music processing in particular and auditory processing in general are discussed.
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ISSN:1053-8119
1095-9572
DOI:10.1006/nimg.2002.1295