Investigation of global and local network properties of music perception with culturally different styles of music

• Ten untrained subjects listened to 3 culturally different styles of music stimuli.
• Electroencephalograms were measured and global and local network properties compared.
• Light music and western classical music perception manifested small world properties.
• Chinese and western classical music perception showed right lateralization.
• Further research is needed to understand network properties of music perception.

BackgroundGraph theoretical analysis has recently become a popular research tool in neuroscience, however, there have been very few studies on brain responses to music perception, especially when culturally different styles of music are involved.MethodsElectroencephalograms were recorded from ten subjects listening to Chinese traditional music, light music and western classical music. For event-related potentials, phase coherence was calculated in the alpha band and then constructed into correlation matrices. Clustering coefficients and characteristic path lengths were evaluated for global properties, while clustering coefficients and efficiency were assessed for local network properties.ResultsPerception of light music and western classical music manifested small-world network properties, especially with a relatively low proportion of weights of correlation matrices. For local analysis, efficiency was more discernible than clustering coefficient. Nevertheless, there was no significant discrimination between Chinese traditional and western classical music perception.ConclusionsPerception of different styles of music introduces different network properties, both globally and locally. Research into both global and local network properties has been carried out in other areas; however, this is a preliminary investigation aimed at suggesting a possible new approach to brain network properties in music perception.