Processing Hierarchies and Shared Representations in the Brain During Naturalistic Piano Performance

Abstract

Recent work using naturalistic stimuli—like movies, verbal narratives, and music—has expanded our understanding of how the brain processes complex, real-life input. Intersubject correlation (ISC) has been used to characterize the extent to which representation of stimuli is shared across subjects. Some studies using scrambled versions of naturalistic stimuli have revealed temporal processing hierarchies underlying perception of these stimuli, based on differences in ISC between the different scrambled conditions. A new fMRI dataset of expert pianists playing naturalistic music offers the opportunity to investigate these aspects of neural response during piano performance. With ISC of time series, there is some evidence of temporal processing hierarchies in both auditory and motor systems during music production. Analysis of patterns of activity while subjects are playing show that subjects share representation of stimuli over shorter timescales in early auditory areas and motor areas. Shared representations in these areas seem to depend on musical characteristics of the stimulus to some extent. Analysis of patterns of activity during listening show that subjects share representation of stimuli over longer timescales in auditory areas and parietal default mode network areas. These analyses are an attempt to explore neural processes underlying naturalistic music production, inspired by previous findings on perception of naturalistic music and other stimuli. Overall, these findings are a step towards understanding what is going on in the brain while playing music.