Comparing the Mismatch Negativity of Musicians and Nonmusicians in a Melodic Memory Task

The mismatch negativity (MMN) is a classical event-related potential component related to the brain’s detection of a novel audio stimulus in a series of congruent audio stimuli. In music education, aural skills (i.e., ear training) is the ability to retain and recall musical information such as tempo, pitch, key center, and rhythm about a piece of music in the absence of a written score or the music itself. Research into the effectiveness of ear training sessions, such as the melodic memory task (MMT), shows significant improvement of musical error detection from individuals who received such training. The present experiment uses electroencephalography along with a melodic memory task to examine the neural and cognitive processes involved in musical error detection. Participants listen to consecutive melodies that are either identical or altered by a single pitch, a single rhythm, or both on the same musical tone. Participants are asked if the two consecutive melodies were identical or different, with the accuracy of their responses being recorded. The main hypothesis is that musicians will show a greater MMN amplitude than nonmusicians for musical conditions with melodic, rhythmic, and combined deviations, and that this will correspond to better performance in the MMT. Preliminary data analysis for this study showed differences in the accuracy of musician and nonmusician performance in the task, with musicians performing better in melodic and rhythmic variations. Data collection is currently underway.