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.) Fla.), 2002-12, Vol.17 (4), p.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:	Article
Language:	eng
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
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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.
ISSN:	1053-8119 1095-9572