Music Pattern Recognitio

Music Pattern Recognition[edit]

Music provides deep and special emotional experiences for the listener.^[27] These experiences become contents in the long-term memory, and every time we listen to or hear the same tunes, those contents are activated. Recognizing the content by the pattern of the music affects our emotion. The mechanism that forms the pattern recognition of music and the experience has been studied by multiple researchers. The sensation felt when listening to our favorite music is evident by the dilation of the pupils, the increase in pulse and blood pressure, the streaming of blood to the leg muscles and the activation of the cerebellum– brain region associated with physical movement.^[27] While retrieving the memory of a tune demonstrates general recognition of musical pattern, pattern recognition also occurs while listening to a tune for the first time. The recurring nature of the metre allows the listener to follow a tune, recognize the metre, expect its upcoming occurrence and figure the rhythm. The excitement of following a familiar music pattern happens when the pattern breaks and becomes unpredictable. This following and breaking of a pattern creates a problem-solving opportunity for the mind that form the experience.^[27] Psychologist, Daniel Levitin argues that the repetitions, melodic nature and organization of this music creates meaning for the brain.^[28] The brain stores information in an arrangement of neurons which retrieve the same information when activated by the environment. By constantly referencing information and additional stimulation from the environment the brain constructs musical features into a perceptual whole.^[28] The medial prefrontal cortex – one of the last areas affected by Alzheimer’s disease – is the region activated by music.

Cognitive Mechanisms[edit]

To understand music pattern recognition, we need to understand the underlying cognitive systems that each handle a part of this process. Various activities are at work in this recognition of a piece of music and its patterns. Researchers have begun to unveil the reasons behind the stimulated reactions to music. Montreal based researchers asked ten volunteers who got chills listening to music to bring their favorite songs and listen to the tracks while their brain activity was being monitored.^[27] The results show the significant role of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) region – involved with cognitive processes such as motivation, reward, addiction, etc. – creating the neural arrangements that make up the experience.^[27] A sense of reward prediction is created by anticipation before the climax of the tune, that comes to a sense of resolution when the climax is reached. The longer the listener is denied the expected pattern, the greater the emotional arousal when the pattern returns. Musicologist Leonard Meyer used fifty measures of Beethoven’s 5th movement of the String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131 to examine this notion.^[27] The stronger this experience is, the more vivid memory it will create and store. This strength affects the speed and accuracy of retrieval and recognition of the musical pattern. The brain not only recognizes specific tunes, it distinguishes standard acoustic features, speech and music. MIT researchers conducted a study to examine this notion.^[29] The results showed six neural clusters in the auditory cortex responding to the sounds. Four of them triggered when hearing standard acoustic features, one specifically responded to speech and the last exclusively responded to music. Researchers who studied the correlation between temporal evolution of timbral, tonal and rhythmic features of music, came to the conclusion that music engages the brain regions connected to motor actions, emotions and creativity. The research indicates that the whole brain lights up when listening to music.^[30] This amount of activity boosts memory preservation, hence pattern recognition. Recognizing patterns of music is different for a musician and a listener. Although a musician may play the same notes every time, the details of the frequency will always be different. The listener however, will recognize the musical pattern and their types despite the variations. These musical types are conceptual and learned, meaning they might vary culturally.^[31] While listeners are involved with recognizing (implicit) musical material, musicians are involved with recalling (explicit) them.^[2] A UCLA study found that when watching or hearing music being played, neurons associated with the muscles needed for playing the instrument fire. Mirror neurons light up when musicians and non-musicians listen to a piece.^[32]

Developmental Issues[edit]

Pattern recognition of music can build and strengthen other skills; such as, musical synchrony and attentional performance and musical notation and brain engagement. Even a couple of years of musical training, enhances memory and attentions levels. Scientists at University of Newcastle, conducted a study on patients with severe acquired brain injuries (ABIs) and healthy participants, using popular music to examine music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs).^[30] All of the participants were asked to record their familiarity with the song, whether they liked them and what memories they evoked. The results showed that the ABI patients had the highest MEAMs and all the participants had MEAMs of a person, people or a life period that were generally positive.^[30] The participants completed the task by utilizing pattern recognition skills. Memory evocation caused the songs to sound more familiar and well liked. This research can be beneficial to rehabilitating patients of autobiographical amnesia who did not have fundamental deficiency in autobiographical recall memory and intact pitch perception.^[30] In a study at University of California, Davis mapped the brain of participants while they listened to music.^[33] The results showed links between brain regions to autobiographical memories and emotions activated by familiar music. This study can explain the strong response of patients with Alzheimer’s disease to music. This research can help such patients with pattern recognition enhancing tasks.