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Robert J. Zatorre1,* and Andrea R. Halpern2 certs”? What are the psychological and neural mecha-
1
Montreal Neurological Institute nisms associated with these processes?
McGill University A handful of studies have now been carried out on
Montreal, QC this topic using a variety of techniques, including, mag-
Canada H3A 2B4 neto-encephalography (Schürmann et al., 2002), posi-
2 tron emission tomography (Halpern and Zatorre, 1999;
Bucknell University
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania 17837 Zatorre et al., 1996), and functional MRI (Halpern et al.,
2004; Kraemer et al., 2005; Yoo et al., 2001), as well
as behavioral lesion measures (Zatorre and Halpern,
1993), which provide better evidence of causality than
Most people intuitively understand what it means to do functional measures. These diverse studies con-
“hear a tune in your head.” Converging evidence now verge on one principal finding: that neural activity in
indicates that auditory cortical areas can be recruited auditory cortex can occur in the absence of sound (Fig-
even in the absence of sound and that this corres- ure 1) and that this activity likely mediates the phe-
ponds to the phenomenological experience of imag- nomenological experience of imagining music. Beyond
ining music. We discuss these findings as well as this basic understanding, however, much remains to be
some methodological challenges. We also consider understood, including the relative contributions of pri-
the role of core versus belt areas in musical imagery, mary versus secondary auditory regions in each hemi-
the relation between auditory and motor systems dur- sphere, the participation of the frontal cortex to the im-
ing imagery of music performance, and practical im- agery process, and the role of musical training in
plications of this research. development of musical imagery. Before discussing
these substantive questions, however, we turn our at-
Cognitive neuroscientists are faced with a seemingly tention briefly to methodological issues.
daunting task: understanding how the brain enables us Methodological Problems and Solutions
to experience our rich inner world of thoughts, feelings, The problem of measuring internal phenomena might
and images. The subjectivity involved in these internal appear to have finally found a solution with functional
processes provides a particular challenge because sci- imaging techniques, since one can observe the un-
entific methods require one to measure verifiable, ob- derlying neural activity more directly, rather than infer-
servable events. One domain in which this problem has ring its presence. Yet, we are still left with the concep-
played out is mental imagery. Although behaviorists in tual problem of knowing what is being measured. Thus,
their heyday insisted that imagery was off limits be- merely placing subjects in a scanner and asking them
cause of its obscure, subjective nature, clever cogni- to imagine some music, for instance, simply will not
tivists demonstrated early on that reliable behavioral do, because one will have no evidence that the desired
measures could be obtained that served as indices of mental activity was actually taking place. Neural activ-
what was going on inside the mind. Shepard’s classic ity can still be measured under these circumstances,
demonstration of mental rotation (Shepard and Metzler, but it may well be related to other processes than the
1971) serves as an excellent example of how an overt one intended. One good solution to this problem in-
measurement (response time to judge the orientation volves behavioral indices, such that an overt response
of a letter) can provide evidence of a covert mental pro- is measured that either depends on or correlates with
cess. In other words, one infers the existence of a pro- the imagined event. For instance, if we ask people to
cess based on observing some effect caused by that imagine the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Sym-
process; in this respect, cognitive approaches are not phony and they correctly and consistently judge that
so different from physics or other sciences in which the the fourth note is lower than the third, then we have
objective evidence that an internal representation con-
objects of study (neutrinos, black holes, or whatever)
taining pitch information has been accessed (Halpern,
are simply not accessible.
1988). In the context of neuroimaging, such tasks have
Recent Advances in the Study of Musical Imagery
the disadvantage that they carry a lot of cognitive over-
Imagery is not exclusively visual, as anyone can attest
head in the form of attentional, working memory, and
to who has ever been annoyed by some advertising jin-
response demands; but these can be accounted for
gle playing relentlessly in his or her mind. On a more
with appropriate control conditions. Simpler tasks, such
exalted level, composers such as Beethoven or Smet-
as imagining the continuation of a known musical se-
ana, who became deaf later in their lives, nonetheless
lection (Kraemer et al., 2005) can also be useful. But in
were able to compose magnificent music, presumably
such tasks there is less control over the success with
because they were able to conjure up musical images which imagery may be achieved at any given moment,
solely internally. Many researchers have concentrated absent a behavioral correlate, such as the time taken
on understanding musical imagery in particular partly for the continuation, matched against the length of the
because of the ubiquity and vividness of imagined mu- excerpt. Using fMRI poses special problems because
sic. So what enables us to produce these “mental con- of the loud acoustical artifact produced by echo-planar
imaging, which itself results in a large auditory cortical
*Correspondence: robert.zatorre@mcgill.ca response. The interactions between this response and
Neuron
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movement. Instrumentalists make extensive arm, fin- musical attributes. Highben and Palmer (2004) asked
ger, and sometimes foot movements in the course of pianists to learn an unfamiliar piece, under normal con-
producing their instrument’s voice. Singers use com- ditions or when they could not hear their own playing.
plex movements of the vocal apparatus to produce Players who tested high on an aural skills battery were
songs, especially if they are putting words to those least disturbed in learning the piece without auditory
songs. Given the behavioral and neural evidence for feedback, suggesting that their auditory imagery skills
people being able to imagine musical movements, is were adding in the necessary auditory experience
there evidence that auditory and motor imagery may be to facilitate learning. Humphreys (1986) reported that
integrated in the brain? Hickok et al. (2003) found that training in auditory imagery improved harmony skills
area Spt (parietal-temporal boundary) responded to in children.
both imagined auditory (both speech and music) and The research described above can also help illumi-
covertly produced sequences in a similar fashion. In nate how musicians use mental practice. This skill in-
perhaps a stronger test of this integration, Haueisen volves imagery in several modalities: visual (pianists
and Knösche (2001) found that pianists showed activa- “see” their hands on the keyboard), motor/kinesthetic
tion in primary motor regions corresponding to the fin- (they “feel” the keyboard and finger motions), as well as
ger that would have produced a given note, even when auditory. Experimental evidence bearing on the neural
they were merely listening to pieces they knew how to processes involved is still quite limited, but Pascual-
perform. Conversely, Haslinger et al. (2005) observed Leone (2003) has demonstrated that mental practice
activation in several auditory areas when musicians improves performance, albeit not to the level of real
watched a silent video of someone fingering piano practice. However, changes over time in the size of the
keys. Thus, despite a rather different circuitry, imagery cortical representation of the motor cortex were similar
of related musical sounds and movement can be inte- for real and imagined practice. Given the existence of
grated. This corresponds to reports from musicians cross-modal interactions, we may eventually be in a
that they can “hear” their instrument during mental better position to explain when and how these imag-
practice. ined experiences will actually benefit musicians and
Cross-Modal Interactions thus be able to optimize practice regimes for individ-
Processing in one sensory modality can affect process- uals as well as add to the literature on neuroplasticity
ing in another, either by increasing or suppressing ac- in response to expert training.
tivity; similar interactions also appear to occur if one or We have attempted here to argue that well-consid-
both tasks are based not on perceptual, but on imag- ered behavioral methods combined with convergent
ined information. Langheim et al. (2002) found that neuroimaging and other techniques can successfully
imagining musical performances suppressed activity in externalize the particularly covert process of musical
the auditory regions, although they suggested that it auditory imagery. This research allows us to gain insight
may have been related to suppression of scanner into one of the more inaccessible aspects of cognition,
noise. Halpern et al. (2004) also found that a visual im- and thereby provides us with valuable information con-
agery task suppressed activity in right secondary audi- cerning the neural underpinnings of abstract mental
tory cortex (which was active in imagery for musical processes. Clinical or educational applications pertain-
timbre) to levels below that seen with a silent baseline. ing to these highest levels of cognitive function will
As noise was not a factor given the sparse sampling emerge only to the extent that we can rigorously link
technique used, it seems that cross-modal interactions brain mechanisms to mental processes; we would ar-
may operate similarly in auditory imagery as they do in gue that the future of cognitive neuroscience will de-
the processing of actual sound. pend on expanding just this sort of knowledge.
Implications
Musical imagery is important to musicians, so an un-
derstanding of its neural basis may help us understand
aspects of expertise as well as provide some useful Selected Reading
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Neuron
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