FIGURE 1.

The cortical response to the beat of music. (A) Three bars from the musical score of a musical piece (OTJ, top) may be contrasted with its scrambled version (bottom). Note that the randomization occurs over the whole length of the musical piece, and not only over the three bars that are shown here. The notes in the first three bars of the musical piece are thus not all identical to those in the first three bars of the scrambled version. (B) The amplitude spectra of the envelope of a musical piece (FE, blue) and its scrambled version (red) show the same magnitudes at the beat frequency and its higher harmonics. Deviations between the two spectra are well below the noise (shaded areas denote the SEM). (C) The amplitude spectrum from a frontal channel in a representative subject in response to an attended musical piece contained a large response at the beat frequency f_b (6 Hz). (D) The response at the beat frequency was largest in the frontal area and smallest at the occipital pole. The scalp topographic map displays the amplitude of the electroencephalography (EEG) responses at the beat frequency in response to an attended musical piece, averaged over all subjects and trials.