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Music Matters

Exploring music and the mind.

by Henkjan Honing

Henkjan Honing is Associate Professor in Music Cognition at the University of Amsterdam. See full bio

January 26, 2009, Neuroscience

Comments on "Do newborn infants have a sense of rhythm?"

Do newborn infants have a sense of rhythm?

By Henkjan Honing on January 26, 2009 in Music Matters

It might look somewhat disturbing, but the picture that accompanies this entry is a snapshot of a two day old baby that is healthy and sound asleep! She is one of fourteen newborns that participated in a recent listening experiment, a collaboration between the Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and our research group at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In this project we are interested in how newborn infants perceive the musical world around them and in how far certain musical skills are innate.

Orienting Response

Submitted by Terry on January 27, 2009 - 1:09am.

Henkjan Honing wrote:

"What did the experiment reveal? Well, shortly after each
‘deviant' segment began, the babies' brains produced an
electrical response indicating that they had expected to
hear the downbeat but had not. As such we could show that
newborn infants can detect the beat in music"

Let me guess, this "electrical response" was specifically
the Orienting Response?

A bit off topic, I was wondering if you would be willing to
do a related experiment and blog about it. Not to go to the
trouble of doing a formal experiment and publishing the results
in a Scientific Journal (although that would be nice), but
just a very simple experiment using your expertise in EEG.

Right now there are large number of babies and young children
who are watching more and more TV. There are even baby channels
and baby videos. How does all this TV effect the brains of viewers?

Personally I am not any kind of brain expert, but I do have an
EEG machine (a Brainmaster which is used by clinical psychologists).

I did the following experiment (using my husband as a subject):

This is the summary results from the Brainmaster Review Screen.

Working on math problems for 10 minutes:

Alpha: 2.45
Lobeta: 2.14 (Low Beta)
Beta: 1.43
Hibeta: 27.96 (High Beta)
Gamma: 1.50

Reading a novel for 10 minutes:

Alpha: 2.16
Lobeta: 1.30 (Low Beta)
Beta: 0.85
Hibeta: 4.50 (High Beta)
Gamma: 2.23

Watching TV (Die Hard) for 10 minutes:

Alpha: 1.30
Lobeta: 0.77 (Low Beta)
Beta: 0.24
Hibeta: 1.82 (High Beta)
Gamma: 0.04

Notice, how the fastest brainwaves (Hibeta and Gamma) almost disappear
during TV watching.

According to this Science Daily article:

"Analyzing the children’s EEGs (electroencephalograms), Benasich and
her research team found that those with higher language and cognitive
abilities had correspondingly higher gamma power than those with poorer
language and cognitive scores. Similarly, children with better attention
and inhibitory control, the ability to moderate or refrain from behavior
when instructed, also had higher gamma power."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081021120945.htm

Mr. Honing, as a scientist and someone with EEG expertise, I hope you
will, at some point, take a few minutes to do this experiment, and then
make an effort to let people know about the results. That goes for
anyone else out there with access to an EEG, why not find out if TV really
is "overstimulating" or not?

Scientific Studies

Submitted by Terry on January 27, 2009 - 1:11am.

Few Scientific articles refer to the
phenomenon of TV causing the viewers'
brainwaves to slow down, but here are
a couple:

"Brain Wave Measures of Media Involvement"
by Herbert Krugman:

http://books.google.com/books?id=VLh-LSg6GyAC&pg=PA143&dq=How+Advertisin...

This is a conclusion that seems to be accepted
in academia. In the Scientific American cover story
"Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor" the
authors wrote:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=0005339B-A694-1CC5-B4A8809EC588EEDF&...

"As one might expect, people who were watching
TV when we beeped them reported feeling relaxed
and passive. The EEG studies similarly show less
mental stimulation, as measured by alpha brain-wave
production, during viewing than during reading."

"What is it about TV that has such a hold on us?
In part, the attraction seems to spring from our
biological "orienting response." First described
by Ivan Pavlov in 1927, the orienting response is
our instinctive visual or auditory reaction to any
sudden or novel stimulus. It is part of our
evolutionary heritage, a built-in sensitivity
to movement and potential predatory threats."

"In 1986 Byron Reeves of Stanford University,
Esther Thorson of the University of Missouri and
their colleagues began to study whether the simple
formal features of television--cuts, edits, zooms,
pans, sudden noises--activate the orienting response,
thereby keeping attention on the screen. By watching
how brain waves were affected by formal features,
the researchers concluded that these stylistic
tricks can indeed trigger involuntary responses
and "derive their attentional value through the
evolutionary significance of detecting movement....
It is the form, not the content, of television
that is unique.""

"Lang and her colleagues have also investigated
whether formal features affect people's memory
of what they have seen. In one of their studies,
participants watched a program and then filled
out a score sheet. Increasing the frequency of
edits--defined here as a change from one camera
angle to another in the same visual scene--
improved memory recognition, presumably because
it focused attention on the screen. Increasing
the frequency of cuts--changes to a new visual
scene--had a similar effect but only up to a
point. If the number of cuts exceeded 10 in two
minutes, recognition dropped off sharply."

More info:

http://www.tvsmarter.com/documents/alpha.html

Note: There were chemists and climate scientists who were
willing to point out the potential for Global Warming
long before it became socially acceptable to do so.
It seems that too many neurologists and brain scientists
lack the courage of their climate colleagues.

Other Media

Submitted by Alex on January 27, 2009 - 5:40am.

I would be interested to know if there has been any such research done for more interactive media, such as different ways of using the internet, or playing particular video games.

My hypothesis would be that brain activity for computer use would be significantly higher than you showed for television. Of course, this would depend on the nature of the use: someone reading a newspaper online would probably be similar to someone reading a novel as you showed; someone playing a reflex-based action video game would likely be more similar to someone playing sports (minus the muscle involvement?), and someone playing a more strategic game might be similar to someone doing math or logic problems...

I just worry that the TV study may be misinterpreted by parents or policy-makers as meaning that all electronic activity is "bad," when it is perhaps the type and level of interactivity that is more important. Also, perhaps someone could study hormone levels as well - doing problems may be more stimulating, but it may also be more stressful or frustrating. Some time engaged in a more passive activity, like reading a novel, may be a nice break to help someone relax.

Other Media

Submitted by Terry on January 27, 2009 - 10:39pm.

Alex wrote:

"I would be interested to know if there has been
any such research done for more interactive media,
such as different ways of using the internet, or
playing particular video games.
My hypothesis would be that brain activity for
computer use would be significantly higher than
you showed for television. Of course, this would
depend on the nature of the use: someone reading
a newspaper online would probably be similar to
someone reading a novel as you showed; someone
playing a reflex-based action video game would
likely be more similar to someone playing sports
(minus the muscle involvement?), and someone
playing a more strategic game might be similar
to someone doing math or logic problems..."

I agree with you 100%. It irritates me to no
end when people lump all electronic screen time
together. As if reading a blog, is exactly the
same as watching an online music-video, and
exactly like playing Tetris or online Scrabble
or some other type of video game.

But yes, it would be interesting to measure
the brainwaves of more activities, including
playing various video games. And it does seem
logical to me that different video games would
have different effects on the mind.

Considering the fact that various types of
video games have been shown to *enhance* various
brain abilities, it would make sense to me that
brainwaves speed up while playing. Studies have
been done looking at the brainwaves of musicians
while they play their instruments, their brainwaves
do speed up tremendously.

"I just worry that the TV study may be
misinterpreted by parents or policy-makers
as meaning that all electronic activity is
"bad," when it is perhaps the type and level
of interactivity that is more important."

I think that's the nature of scientific enquiry.
Studies are essential for the search for truth,
but these same studies can be misconstrued for
political gain. That's why the internet is so
very valuable. People can read the details of
any study and decide for themselves if the
conclusions are reasonable or not.

I wonder if it has anything

Submitted by Riyan on January 27, 2009 - 8:00am.

I wonder if it has anything to do with hearing or feeling the mother's heartbeat while in the womb...

I realize other mammals have that experience too, and still may not express beat induction, but perhaps predisposed humans require the rhythm of the mother's heartbeat in order to develop it?

"I wonder if it has anything

Submitted by Henkjan Honing on January 27, 2009 - 8:18am.

"I wonder if it has anything to do with hearing or feeling the mother's heartbeat while in the womb.." Indeed, if beat induction has something to do with hearing the mother's heartbeat in the womb one would expect other nonhuman animals to have it as well. Until now there is however no evidence of that (N.B. exception?).

Thanks

Submitted by Terry on January 27, 2009 - 10:03pm.

Hey Mr. Honing,

Thanks for *not* deleting my comments!

I hope you will take my suggestion seriously,
and take a few minutes to try the TV brainwave
experiment for yourself.

Even if you don't feel comfortable blogging
about the results, I hope you will share the
results with your colleagues.

Considering the huge amount of time that
young kids spend in front of the TV
(much less in the Netherlands), and the
plasticity of young minds, this is an
important subject.