Melodic pitch contrasts produce larger cortical responses than repeated tones

Evidence

The response to the first note of the tonic sequence is very similar to the first note of the melodic sequence. Thereafter, however, the adapted responses to notes 2–4 in the melodic sequence (blue) are substantially larger than their counterparts in the tonic sequence (red), both with regard to the N1m component and the P2m component (N100m: t max_note2 = ‑204, p = 0.002; t max_note3 = ‑229.35, p = 0.002; t max_note4 = ‑239.27, p = 0.002; P200m: t max_note2 = 416.04, p = 0.0001; t max_note3 = 427.91, p = 0.002; t max_note4 = 443.30, p = 0.002). The level, duration and timbre of the notes in the tonic and melodic sequences are the same, so the differences in the source waves reflect the processing of the sequence of pitch changes that together constitute the melody. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4712