Behavioral and neural correlates of perceived and imagined musical timbre

The generality of findings implicating secondary auditory areas in auditory imagery was tested by using a timbre imagery task with fMRI. Another aim was to test whether activity in supplementary motor area (SMA) seen in prior studies might have been related to subvocalization. Participants with moderate musical background were scanned while making similarity judgments about the timbre of heard or imagined musical instrument sounds. The critical control condition was a visual imagery task. The pattern of judgments in perceived and imagined conditions was similar, suggesting that perception and imagery access similar cognitive representations of timbre. As expected, judgments of heard timbres, relative to the visual imagery control, activated primary and secondary auditory areas with some right-sided asymmetry. Timbre imagery also activated secondary auditory areas relative to the visual imagery control, although less strongly, in accord with previous data. Significant overlap was observed in these regions between perceptual and imagery conditions. Because the visual control task resulted in deactivation of auditory areas relative to a silent baseline, we interpret the timbre imagery effect as a reversal of that deactivation. Despite the lack of an obvious subvocalization component to timbre imagery, some activity in SMA was observed, suggesting that SMA may have a more general role in imagery beyond any motor component.

Examining The Genetic, Social-Cognitive, And Neural Correlates Of Autism Spectrum Disorder Behaviors In Typically Developing Chi

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are pervasive developmental disorders that affect approximately 1 in 50 children (Blumberg et al., 2013). Due to the social nature of the deficits that characterize the disorders, many have classified them as disorders of social cognition, which is the process that individuals use in order to successfully interact with members of their own species (Frith & Frith, 2007). Previous research has typically neglected the spectrum nature of ASD in favor of a more categorical approach of ¿autistic¿ versus ¿non-autistic,¿ but the spectrum requires a more continuous approach. Thus, the present study sought to examine the genetic, social-cognitive, and neural correlates of ASD-like traits as well as the relationship between these dimensions in typically developing children. Parents and children completed several quantitative measures examining several areas of social-cognitive functioning, including theory of mind and social functioning, restricted/repetitive behaviors and interests, and adaptive/maladaptive functioning. Children were also asked to undergo an EEG and both parents and children contributed a saliva sample that was used to sequence four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the OXTR gene, rs1042778, rs53576, rs2254298, and rs237897. We successfully demonstrated a significant relationship between behavioral measures of social-cognition and differences in face perception via the N170. However, the directionality of these relationships varied based on the behavioral measure and particular N170 difference scores. We also found support for the associations between the G_G allelic combination of rs1042778 and the A_A and A_G allelic combinations of rs2254298 and increased ASD-like behavior with decreased social-cognitive functioning. In contrast, our results contradict previous findings with rs237897 and imply that individuals with the A_A and A_G genotypes are less similar to those with ASD and have higher social cognitive functioning than those with the G_G genotype. In conclusion, we have demonstrated the existence of ASD-like traits in typically developing children and have shown a link between behavioral, genetic, and neural correlates of social-cognition. These findings demonstrate the importance of considering autism as a spectrum disorder and provide support for the move to a more continuous approach to neurodevelopmental disorders.

More than Tunes in Your Head: Dynamic Aspects of Auditory Imagery for Music

Auditory imagery is more than just mental “replaying” of tunes in one’s head. I will review several studies that capture characteristics of complex and active imagery tasks, using both behavioral and neuroscience approaches. I use behavioral methods to capture people’s ability to make emotion judgments about both heard and imagined music in real time. My neuroimaging studies look at the neural correlates of encoding an imagined melody, anticipating an upcoming tune, and also imagining tunes backwards. Several studies show voxel-by-voxel correlates of neural activity with self-report of imagery vividness. These studies speak to the ways in which musical imagery allows us not just to remember music, but also how we use those memories to judge temporally changing aspects of the musical experience.