In a study led by Jii Kwon and Chun Kee Chung, from Seoul National University, researchers explored whether they could recreate melodies from the brain activity of people imagining how songs continue after listening to a few bars.\u00a0The\u00a0researchers’\u00a0work is published in\u00a0eNeuro.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Study participants were 10 epilepsy patients\u00a0with electrodes on the surfaces of their brains\u00a0for clinical monitoring purposes.\u00a0Participants\u00a0quietly listened to the first bars of children’s tunes, then imagined the melodies of\u00a0subsequent\u00a0bars of the songs before\u00a0humming\u00a0their imagined melodies. Brain activity from the patients carried information about relative\u00a0pitches\u00a0within the imagined melodies.\u00a0Combining\u00a0note-level\u00a0pitch\u00a0predictions over time allowed the\u00a0research\u00a0team to recreate\u00a0melodic\u00a0changes\u00a0that reflected the structure of the imagined songs.<\/p>\n
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The model we created decodes relative pitch classes-such as do, re, mi, fa, sol, and la-rather than exact,\u00a0absolute pitches. This is useful because people often recognize melodies by the relationships between notes, even when the same melody is played in a different key.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Jii Kwon,\u00a0Seoul National University<\/p>\n
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According to the authors, this study provides evidence that brain signals reveal the pitches of notes in imagined musical melodies. These findings may motivate future work on decoding other musical attributes, such as tempo\u00a0and\u00a0dynamics, or exploring whether similar approaches can extend beyond familiar children’s songs to more complex music. Kwon\u00a0hopes these findings may eventually\u00a0help develop ways of reconstructing imagined melodies for individuals with little music background or even patient populations-such as those with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis-who cannot articulate what they are imagining.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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