How the Brain Recognizes Familiar Music

Research from McGill University revealed that the brain’s motor network helps people remember and recognize music that they have performed in the past better than music they have only heard. The study sheds light on how humans perceive and produce sounds, and may help investigate whether or not motor learning could improve or protect memory or cognitive impairment in aging populations. For the study, researchers recruited 20 skilled pianists. The group was asked to learn simple melodies by either hearing them several times or performing them several times on a piano. Pianists then heard all of the melodies they had learned (some of which contained wrong notes) while their brain’s electric signals were measured using electroencephalography (EEG). The results of the study showed that the pianists were better at recognizing pitch changes in melodies they had performed earlier. Additionally, the research team found that EEG measurements revealed larger changes in brain waves and increased motor activity for previously performed melodies than for heard melodies about 200 milliseconds after the wrong notes. This reveals that the brain quickly compares incoming auditory information with motor information stored in memory, allowing us to recognize whether a sound is familiar. To read more about this study, click here.