Hysteresis in the selective synchronization of brain activity to musical rhythm

Abstract

When listening to musical rhythm, people tend to spontaneously perceive and move along with a periodic pulse-like meter. Moreover, perception and entrainment to the meter show remarkable stability in the face of dynamically changing rhythmic structure of music, even when acoustic cues to meter frequencies are degraded in the rhythmic input. Here we show that this perceptual phenomenon is supported by a selective synchronization of endogenous brain activity to the perceived meter, and that this neural synchronization is significantly shaped by recent context, especially when the incoming input becomes increasingly ambiguous. We recorded the EEG while non-musician and musician participants listened to nonrepeating rhythmic sequences where acoustic cues to meter frequencies either gradually decreased (from regular to ambiguous) or increased (from ambiguous to regular). We observed that neural activity selectively synchronized to the perceived meter persisted longer when the sequence gradually changed from regular to ambiguous compared to the opposite, thus demonstrating hysteresis in the neural processing of a dynamically changing rhythmic stimulus. This dependence on recent context was weaker in the neural responses of musicians, who also showed greater ability to tap along with a regular meter irrespective of stimulus ambiguity, thus reflecting greater stability relative to current and recent stimulus in musicians. Together, these asymmetric context effects demonstrate how the relative contribution of incoming and prior signals is continuously weighted to shape neural selection of functionally-relevant features and guide perceptual organization of dynamic input.\n\nSignificance statementWhen listening to musical rhythm, people tend to spontaneously perceive and move along with a periodic pulse-like meter. Moreover, perception and entrainment to the meter seem to show remarkable stability in the face of dynamically changing rhythmic structure of music. Here we show that this is supported by a selective synchronization of brain activity at meter frequencies. This selective neural synchronization persists longer when a nonrepeating sequence gradually transforms from a regular to an ambiguous rhythm compared to the opposite. This asymmetric context effect suggests that the brain processes rhythm based on a flexible combination of sensory and endogenous information. Such continuously updated neural emphasis on meter periodicities might therefore guide robust perceptual organization of a dynamic rhythmic input.