Pearce, Marcus T.; Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Kapasi, Selina; Wiggins, Geraint and Bhattacharya, Joydeep. 2010. Unsupervised statistical learning underpins computational, behavioural, and neural manifestations of musical expectation. NeuroImage, 50(1), pp. 302-313. ISSN 1053-8119 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

The ability to anticipate forthcoming events has clear evolutionary advantages, and predictive successes or failures often entail significant psychological and physiological consequences. In music perception, the confirmation and violation of expectations are critical to the communication of emotion and aesthetic effects of a composition. Neuroscientific research on musical expectations has focused on harmony. Although harmony is important in Western tonal styles, other musical traditions, emphasizing pitch and melody, have been rather neglected. In this study, we investigated melodic pitch expectations elicited by ecologically valid musical stimuli by drawing together computational, behavioural, and electrophysiological evidence. Unlike rule-based models, our computational model acquires knowledge through unsupervised statistical learning of sequential structure in music and uses this knowledge to estimate the conditional probability (and information content) of musical notes. Unlike previous behavioural paradigms that interrupt a stimulus, we devised a new paradigm for studying auditory expectation without compromising ecological validity. A strong negative correlation was found between the probability of notes predicted by our model and the subjectively perceived degree of expectedness. Our electrophysiological results showed that low-probability notes, as compared to high-probability notes, elicited a larger (i) negative ERP component at a late time period (400–450 ms), (ii) beta band (14–30 Hz) oscillation over the parietal lobe, and (iii) long-range phase synchronization between multiple brain regions. Altogether, the study demonstrated that statistical learning produces information-theoretic descriptions of musical notes that are proportional to their perceived expectedness and are associated with characteristic patterns of neural activity.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.12.019
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Psychology Research Office > REF2014
Dates:	Date Event 2010 Published
Item ID:	5967
Date Deposited:	24 Oct 2011 14:40
Last Modified:	30 Jun 2017 15:43
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/5967

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• Unsupervised statistical learning underpins computational, behavioural, and neural manifestations of musical expectation. (deposited 18 Oct 2010 10:35)
  • Unsupervised statistical learning underpins computational, behavioural, and neural manifestations of musical expectation. (deposited 24 Oct 2011 14:40) [Currently Displayed]

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