Elsevier

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 488, Issue 1, 13 January 2011, Pages 101-105
Neuroscience Letters

Consonant chords stimulate higher EEG gamma activity than dissonant chords

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2010.11.011Get rights and content

Abstract

We examined the perceptions of consonant and dissonant chords to test auditory coherent percepts that are related to gamma oscillation. Consonant chords have coherent auditory properties due to the physical relationships of their components, in contrast to dissonant chords. EEGs were measured on 18 subjects with no musical expertise while they listened to consonant chords, dissonant chords, and single-note sounds and counted the number of single tones they heard. Induced gamma band activity was observed over the right brain hemisphere 170 ms after the onset of stimuli. The induced gamma activity was significantly increased while listening to consonant chords as compared to dissonant chords. Our results suggest that the neural activity of the gamma frequency bands may reflect an auditory coherent percept generated from physical relationships of sounds.

Research highlights

▶ Consonant chords have coherent auditory properties by physical characteristics. ▶ Induced gamma band are more increased by consonant chords than dissonant chords. ▶ Gamma bands may reflect auditory coherent percept.

Section snippets

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a grant (R0120050001052202006) from the Basic Research Program of the Korea Science & Engineering Foundation. The authors would like to thank Byoung-Kyoung Min, Ph.D. and Il Keun Lee, M.D. for their help with experiments.

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