Understanding neural correlates of pitch and harmony using EEG

One area of our research is investigating the cortical responses using EEG to varying features of pitch, harmony, and particularly the effect of context on these neural responses. For instance, one of our EEG experiments investigates differences in cortical responses when transitioning from sounds with a salient pitch (harmonic sounds) to those without a salient pitch (inharmonic sounds, including noise). Additionally, another ongoing EEG experiment investigates the differences in cortical evoked potentials using EEG for chord sequences that experiment with participants listening to chord progressions that follow and violate rules of standard western music theory. For all of these studies, we carefully control stimulus parameters to distinguish between sensory priming and contextual priming for all these context effects. This allows for a better understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying pitch perception and the influence of context in music and pitch processing.