Neurophysiologic Changes Associated with Short-Term Musical Training

Although it is generally accepted that short-term and long-term familiarity to auditory signals can alter neurophysiologic responses, it is not known to which properties of music the familiarity effect is attributable. Our research aims to decompose the familiarity effect, examining the contribution of one acoustic property – timbre – and one syntactic property – style. We will use fMRI to examine hemodynamic responses as nonmusicians are trained to increase familiarity to a property (timbre or style) of music, and their behavioral and hemodynamic responses will be measured before and after training. This research aims at increasing our understanding of how complex auditory processing occurs at the behavioral and neurologic level, and how training and exposure to complex sounds is associated with neural plasticity.

Investigators

Joanna Wu
Patrick Wong

Collaborator

Lisa Margulis (University of Arkansas)