Working title 

From Unfamiliarity to Familiarity: Exploring the role of Superior Temporal and Higher-Order Associative Network Interactions in the Changing Subjective Experience of Music

Abstract

Statement of the problem :

Music can shift from being unfamiliar to becoming familiar as a result of repeated exposure, being accompanied by changes in recognition, evaluation, and an individual's subjective experience. The existing studies have demonstrated that repeated exposure can alter musical familiarity, recognition, and subjective evaluation, while neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies indicate that musical familiarity involves distributed auditory and higher order networks. However, the interaction between the superior temporal and higher-order associative networks in relation to this transition is not clearly understood. 
This study proposes to investigate whether interactions between the superior temporal and higher-order networks contribute to the change in an individual’s subjective experience of music, given the context when initially unfamiliar music becomes familiar through repeated exposure.

Methodology and Theoretical Orientation: 

A longitudinal design involving repeated exposure, with the musical pieces being presented in separate sessions and subjective assessments of familiarity, evaluation, emotional reaction, and associations gathered during these exposures. EEG and/or fMRI could be employed in order to look at changes in neural activity and connectivity.

Expected Outcomes: 

The primary expected outcome is that the study may provide us insight into how and why subjective evaluation of music develop as initially unfamiliar music develop as initially unfamiliar music becomes familiar through repeated exposures, particularly in relation to interactions between the superior temporal and higher order associative network. A secondary expected outcome is that repeated exposure may strengthen representations of previously encountered auditory patterns and associations, potentially altering how subsequent unfamiliar but related musical stimuli are processed. By tracking changes in the This framework does not assume that familiarity necessarily produces increased liking, the study conceptualizes familiarization as a dynamic change in subjective experience. 

Conclusion and Significance:

By examining the relationship between repeated exposure, neural network patterns and interactions, and subjective musical experience, the proposed study may contribute to how repeated experience shapes the neural and cognitive processes underlying the formation and modification of subjective evaluations of music, offering a more nuanced understanding of how an unfamiliar auditory information becomes familiar, and how repeated exposure subsequently shapes the processing of new musical experiences.