Biology subjects

Peretz, I.

Publications and source records attributed to Peretz, I..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Humans, but not songbirds, produce spontaneously isochronous song through the lifespan

Isochrony - as in the regular beat of a metronome - is cross-culturally ubiquitous in music. Is this ubiquity due to a widespread biological inclination for acoustic communication having isochronous structure? If so, it should be present in lesser-studied vocal music, in the absence of musical training, and in comparable non-human species vocalizations. We quantified isochrony in an untrained expression of musicality: improvised songs from non-musician adults and children. We also tested for isochrony in songs from zebra finches, a bird that learns complex songs. We analyzed improvised songs from children (n = 38, 3-10 years old) and adult non-musicians (n = 15, 24-82 years old), and songs from juvenile and adult zebra finches (n= 77, [~]50 and 120 days post-hatch, respectively). Isochrony was expressed in non-musicians improvised songs, and in childrens improvised songs to a comparable degree. In contrast, both juvenile and adult zebra finches produced songs with less isochrony than chance. And although zebra finches learn sequences and durations of their songs elements, we found no evidence for the learning of isochrony. These data show that spontaneous isochrony in learned vocalizations appears differently across these two species. We propose that species variation in chorusing behaviors may explain why.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2023

Sex Differences in Human Music Perception are Negligible

Since Darwin1, researchers have proposed that human musicality evolved in a reproductive context in which males produce music to signal their mate quality to females. Sexually selected traits involve tradeoffs in the costs of high-quality signal production and high-fidelity signal detection2, leading to observable sexual dimorphisms across many species3,4. If musicality is a sexually selected trait in humans, males and females should then differ in their music perception ability, music production ability, or both. The evidence for this possibility is unclear, because previous reports of sex differences in human auditory perception are restricted in scope and inconsistent in direction5-15. Here, we report a test of music processing ability in 360,009 men and 194,291 women from 208 countries. In contrast to other non-musical human traits16-19, and in contrast to music-related traits in non-human animals20-23, we found no consistent advantage for either sex. The sex differences we did observe were negligible (Cohens d range: 0.009-0.111) and Bayesian analyses indicated evidence in favor of the null hypothesis of no sex difference in general musical ability (Bayes Factor = 0.6). These results suggest that it is unlikely that music evolved in the context of sexual selection.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2020

Neurophysiological network dynamics of pitch change detection.

The detection of pitch changes is crucial to sound localization, music appreciation and speech comprehension, yet the brain network oscillatory dynamics involved remain unclear. We used time-resolved cortical imaging in a pitch change detection task. Tone sequences were presented to both typical listeners and participants affected with congenital amusia, as a model of altered pitch change perception. Our data show that tone sequences entrained slow (2-4 Hz) oscillations in the auditory cortex and inferior frontal gyrus, at the pace of tone presentations. Inter-regional signaling at this slow pace was directed from auditory cortex towards the inferior frontal gyrus and motor cortex. Bursts of faster (15-35Hz) oscillations were also generated in these regions, with directed influence from the motor cortex. These faster components occurred precisely at the expected latencies of each tone in a sequence, yielding a form of local phase-amplitude coupling with slower concurrent activity. The intensity of this coupling peaked dynamically at the moment of anticipated pitch changes. We clarify the mechanistic relevance of these observations in relation to behavior as, by task design, typical listeners outperformed amusic participants. Compared to typical listeners, inter-regional slow signaling toward motor and inferior frontal cortices was depressed in amusia. Also, the auditory cortex of amusic participants over-expressed tonic, fast-slow phase-amplitude coupling, pointing at a possible misalignment between stimulus encoding and internal predictive signaling. Our study provides novel insight into the functional architecture of polyrhythmic brain activity in auditory perception and emphasizes active, network processes involving the motor system in sensory integration.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Music training improves the ability to understand speech-in-noise in older adults

It is well known that hearing abilities decline with age, and one of the most commonly reported hearing difficulties reported in older adults is a reduced ability to understand speech in noisy environments. Older musicians have an enhanced ability to understand speech in noise, and this has been associated with enhanced brain responses related to both speech processing and the deployment of attention, however the causal impact of music lessons in older adults is poorly understood. A sample of older adults was randomly assigned to learn to play piano (Mus), to learn to play a visuo-spatially demanding video-game (Vid), or to serve as a no-contact control (Nocon).After 6 months, the Mus group improved their ability to understand a word presented in loud background noise. This improvement was related to an earlier N100, enhanced P250 (P2/P3) and a reduced N600 (N400). These findings support the idea that music lessons provide a causal benefit to hearing abilities, and that this benefit is due to both enhanced encoding of speech stimuli, and enhanced deployment of attentional mechanisms towards the speech stimuli. Importantly, these findings suggest that music training could be used as a foundation to develop auditory rehabilitation programs for older adults.

neuroscience↗