A Commentary on: “Neural overlap in processing music and speech”

The impact of making music on aural perception and language skills: A research synthesis

“…Despite the commonalities between the processing of music and language, there continues to be debate about the exact nature of the relationship. One area of controversy is whether the brain networks involved are separate or whether neural resources are shared (Kunert and Slevc, 2015;Peretz et al, 2015;Norman-Haignere et al, 2015). Neuroscientific research has focused on anatomical overlap, transfer effects and functional interaction between cognitive processes (Jentschke, 2016).…”

“…Experiments using neuroimaging have revealed common brain regions (Koelsch et al, 2002;Herdener et al, 2014) but this may not mean that there is shared processing circuitry. The outcomes of more sophisticated research methods are also open to different interpretations (see Kunert and Slevc, 2015). Other areas of interest include involvement in structural processing (Patel, 2003), general attention (Perruchet and Poulin-Charronnat, 2013), and cognitive control (Slevc and Okada, 2015).…”

Response: A commentary on: “Neural overlap in processing music and speech”

“…As reviewed by Peretz et al ( 2015 ), neuroimaging studies have been strongly contributing to this debate, suggesting both neural overlap and separability. In their commentary, Kunert and Slevc ( 2015 ) point out that behavioral and electrophysiological studies can also contribute to this investigation, and they provide an overview of research using a music-language interference paradigm.…”

“…Eight of the ten studies listed in Kunert and Slevc ( 2015 ) used musical structure violations that introduced out-of-key notes or chords. Consequently, the question rises in how far the observed interference and interactive patterns are due to the sensory violations of the out-of-key events rather than musical syntax processing.…”

Using music to study the evolution of cognitive mechanisms relevant to language

“…(Henceforth in this article, music refers to instrumental music, and language refers to ordinary language, i.e., not poetry, chant, or other stylized forms). Hidden links between musical and linguistic cognition have been found at several levels of language processing, including syntactic, semantic, prosodic, phonological, and affective (e.g., Flaugnacco et al, 2015;Habib et al, 2016;Koelsch et al, 2004;Koelsch, Gunter, Wittfoth, & Sammler, 2005;Kunert, Willems, Casasanto, Patel, & Hagoort, 2015;Kunert, Willems, & Hagoort, 2016;Lima & Castro, 2011;Liu, Patel, Fourcin, & Stewart, 2010;Musso et al, 2015;Patel, Peretz, Tramo, & Labreque, 1998;Slevc, Rosenberg, & Patel, 2009;Thompson, Schellenberg, & Husain, 2004; for recent debate, see Collins, Tillmann, Barrett, Delbé, & Janata, 2014;Kunert & Slevc, 2015;Peretz, Vuvan, Lagrois, & Armony, 2015;Tillmann & Bigand 2015).…”