Electrocortical activity can predict pianist’s proficiency
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- Psychology, University of Southern Queensland
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- Date:
- Received 05 November 2008 05:20 UTC; Posted 06 November 2008
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- Neuroscience
- Abstract:
Electro-cortical changes associated with learning and performing were investigated in eighteen pianists over three closely-spaced performances of sight-reading a novel music score. Six musical criteria were assessed: right hand errors, left hand errors, rhythmic errors, speed accuracy, fluency, and musical expression. These skills correlated specifically to electrical rhythms of 8.5-10.5 cycles per second near the sensory-motor cortex and the supplementary area. The correlations progressively reduced with each performance as it improved and learning occurred. Further, these electro-cortical potentials can predict the quality of performer and performance at the same or later occasion based on the same or different skill. Understanding this physiology will help to improve the rate, and success, of learning or detect loss of performance-related attention long before sleep onset measures indicate the persistence of loss of vehicle control from exhaustion or drug action. This knowledge can be used in electromechanical coupling allowing direct brain control of devices.
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4 comments
Thanks for the comment Norah: I have looked at learning over a longer period before: http://www.usq.edu.au/users/millsm/079%20Mills%20&%20Brinkworth%20_rev2_.pdf, but it is hard to get participants to provide this much time. I also enclose another article http://www.usq.edu.au/users/millsm/078%20Mills%20et%20al%20_rev_.pdf. Regards,
Malcolm
Thanks for the additional information Malcolm, but neither study really addressed the issue I raised. In fact, alpha suppression was not increased with increasing task difficulty in the driving game, casting some doubt as to whether analyzing these EEG fluctuations could report on arousal or predict performance loss.
Dear Noah:
I referred to two articles relating to alpha suppression with the computer tracking games: PacMan and Need for Speed. While slight alpha suppression was seen at Cz with PacMan, no correlation of alpha suppression with score was apparent, whereas with the car simulation the converse was the case: little apparent suppression of alpha, but 25% correlation at F3 for score to alpha suppression – like the piano study. For males, this initial suppression-related inverse correlation reduced on the second play after familiarisation, but was reinstated after the game difficulty increased. As the task suppressions are from raw alpha, not relative to eyes open/close alpha (ie normalised), perhaps this accounts for the lack of a simple observable effect that nevertheless becomes evident when each individual’s performance score is accounted for with correlation to alpha. The lack of correlation in the PacMan task can be explained by accepting that it was much less demanding than either the simulated car driving or piano playing tasks
There will be several processes underway in these sorts of tasks. As learning proceeds from declarative to procedural function, attention effects will vary.
Providing the task is sufficient to demand most of the subject’s attention, nearly full alpha suppression would occur. If the subject is near to cognitive overload, then there would be no further alpha suppression.I would think it hard to get music students (or perhaps ethics committees) to agree to sleep deprivation: such cohorts must needs be substantially as convenience samples. I can see no immediate reason why correlations would necessarily reoccur, so would leave this for others to pursue, although I would be interested to hear more on this theory.
Malcolm
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Mills, Malcolm. Electrocortical activity can predict pianist’s proficiency. Available from Nature Precedings <http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2008.2477.1> (2008)
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Noah Gray on 06 November 2008 19:28 UTC
I think that some additional work could potentially provide you with stronger evidence to link this EEG frequency band and performance on a more general scale. Once the musical score is learned, presumably leading to a loss of correlation in the EEG, subjecting the pianists to sleep deprivation, followed by a re-performance of the learned piece might bring back the correlations. This would be stronger evidence for linking this EEG activity in the detection of performance loss.