Modeling Tonal Structure in Music: From Theory to Behavior and Brain Function

西方的调性音乐是以大调和小调为基础的。当人们听西方音乐多年，他们获得了一个隐含的了解如何键相互关联。这使得听众能够检测到“错误的音符”或感知音乐中的紧张感。琴键之间的关系，也就是所谓的音调空间，可以用它们在圆环（一个甜甜圈形状的几何空间）上的相对位置来描述。在这个提议中开发的模型提供了音乐如何在音调空间的环面上移动以及我们对该运动的期望如何影响我们的行为，情感和神经反应的定量描述。 当模型预测一个特定的音符或和弦是意外的，它会被认为是一个意外的或“错误的”音符吗？拟议中的工作还将探讨的时间尺度上的音调的期望结构。模型预测的在音调空间中跟随音乐运动的大脑活动与音乐唤起记忆时实际参与的大脑回路是否相同？这项研究更广泛的意义在于将音乐的结构方面与特定的心理和神经过程联系起来，这些过程是我们感知，欣赏和回应音乐的能力的基础。正在开发的模型是以期望概念为中心的。世界提供的感官输入是否符合我们的期望，正在成为我们大脑如何运作的一般原则。通过研究期望是如何在大脑中与音乐（一种对人类来说非常强大和引人注目的刺激来源）联系起来的，研究人员希望对人类大脑的功能组织有更全面的了解。

Western tonal music is based on major and minor keys. When people listen to Western music over many years, they acquire an implicit understanding of how the keys are related to each other. This allows listeners to detect "wrong notes" or to perceive a sense of tension in the music. The relationships of the keys to one another, something called tonal space, can be described by their relative position on a torus (a donut-shaped geometrical space). The model developed in this proposal provides quantitative descriptions of how music moves on the torus of tonal space and how our expectations concerning that movement effect our behavioral, emotional, and neural responses. When the model predicts that a particular note or chord is unexpected, will it be perceived as an unexpected or "wrong' note? The proposed work will also explore the timescales over which tonal expectations are structured. Is the model-predicted brain activity that follows music's movements in tonal space the same as the brain circuitry actually engaged when memories are evoked by music?The broader significance of this research lies in relating structural aspects of music to specific psychological and neural processes that underlie our ability to perceive, appreciate, and respond to music. The model that is being developed is centered on the concept of expectation. Whether the sensory input that the world provides matches our expectations is emerging as a general principle for how our brains function. By examining how expectations operate in the brain in association with music, an extremely powerful and compelling source of stimulation for humans, the investigators hope to gain more general insight into the functional organization of the human brain.