Steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP) responses correlate with musically trained participants' encoding and retention phases of musical working memory task performance

This study investigated cortical responses to aspects of musical cognition associated with musically trained participants' performance in a musical wo rking memory task. Steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEP) were rec orded from 64 scalp sites of 20 musically trained females while they perfor med two auditory tasks. A probe-recognition task required participants to d etect changes in pitch to a recently presented 10-note pitch pattern. Indiv idual particpant's scores in the probe task were correlated with SSVEP late ncy responses averaged separately over encoding and retention phases of the task. Significant negative correlations were found between participant per formance and SSVEP latency over left temporal electrodes during the encodin g and retention phase and over left frontal electrodes during the retention phase. It is proposed that cognitive strategies implemented by higher perf orming participants elicited greater involvement of local left temporal and left frontal cortical networks in conjunction with music encoding and rete ntion processes.