PSYCH 119T Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Theta Wave, Absolute Pitch, Process Music
Document Summary
Put electrodes on the skull and it can record alpha, beta, delta, theta waves. Natural oscillations of neuronal firing a clue to neural basis of liking vs. not liking musical pieces. High oscillations = many neurons are firing. Low oscillations = fewer neurons fire off. Synchrony of oscillations = the oscillations are under neural control that synchronizes rate of oscillation. Motor cortex has it s own synchrony/oscillation. Eeg in 27 non-musicians and 12 musicians was measured. They listened to 3 clips of classical music. Cortical oscillations of both musicians & non-musicians synchronized with the tempo of the clips of music. I. e. , music altered the default cortical oscillation! A match between the tempo of a piece of music and the tempo of cortical neuronal oscillations could spell. The study also showed that the degree of synchronization affected how well listeners processed the content of the music itself.
