How the Brain Understands Spoken and Sung Sentences

Abstract

The present study investigates whether meaning is similarly extracted from spoken and sung sentences. For this purpose, subjects listened to semantically correct and incorrect sentences while performing a correctness judgement task. In order to examine underlying neural mechanisms, a multi-methodological approach was chosen combining two neuroscientific methods with behavioral data. In particular, fast dynamic changes reflected in the semantically associated N400 component of the electroencephalography (EEG) were simultaneously assessed with the topographically more fine-grained vascular signals acquired by the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). EEG results revealed a larger N400 for incorrect compared to correct sentences in both spoken and sung sentences. However, the N400 was delayed for sung sentences, potentially due to the longer sentence duration. fNIRS results revealed larger activations for spoken compared to sung sentences irrespective of semantic correctness at predominantly left-hemispheric areas, potentially suggesting a greater familiarity with spoken material. Furthermore, the fNIRS revealed a widespread activation for correct compared to incorrect sentences irrespective of modality, potentially indicating a successful processing of sentence meaning. The combined results indicate similar semantic processing in speech and song.

Advances in the Neurocognition of Music and Language

“…However, they did equally well in infant-directed speech. Similarly, Rossi et al [14] found no differences between speech and songs in a combined EEG-NIRS study on semantic processing in healthy adults. Taken together, these data suggest that the presentation of verbal material as song may not be sufficient to enhance vocabulary learning or language comprehension in healthy individuals (but see [40]).…”

“…If rhythmic processing disabilities are indeed the basis of speech and language disorders, then useful avenues for prevention and intervention could lie in (i) increasing the regularity of stimuli, or (ii) strengthening individual rhythmic abilities with the aim at improving neuronal entrainment [37][38][39]. Several studies in this Special Issue deal directly or indirectly with these ideas, either by exploring processing benefits of rhythmically highly regular stimuli such as songs [13,14] or poems [10,11], or by discussing potential protective or curative effects of music-based rhythm training on language skills [7,8,10,12,15,16]. Even though the results are promising, they also raise a number of questions.…”

“…Sixteen research papers and reviews from 48 experts in linguistics, musicology, cognitive neuroscience, biological psychology and educational sciences demonstrate that research has been active on all fronts. As we will see, the studies follow two burgeoning trends in M&L research: First, they focused on common auditory processing of temporal regularities [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ] that are thought to promote higher-level linguistic functions [ 8 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ], possibly via mechanisms of neuronal entrainment [ 15 ]. Second, they explored top-down modulations of common auditory processes [ 16 , 17 , 18 ] by domain-general cognitive [ 19 , 20 ] and motor functions in both perception and production [ 21 ].…”

The Power of Music

“…A further strand of research has focused on the common auditory processing of temporal regularities (Boll-Avetisyan et al, 2020;Fotidzia et al, 2018;Lagrois et al, 2019;Reybrouck and Podlipniak, 2019). These are thought to promote higher-level linguistic functions (Breen et al, 2019;Frey et al, 2019;Fotidzis et al, 2018: Richards andGoswami, 2019;Rossi et al, 2020;Snijders et al, 2020), possibly through neuronal entrainment (Myers et al, 2019). For instance, Lagrois and colleagues (2019) found that so-called 'beat deaf individuals', those who have beat-finding deficits in music, showed deficits in synchronising tapping with speech rhythm, and more generally, in regular tapping without external rhythms.…”

The Power of Music: an exploration of the evidence [PREPRINT]

“…A further strand of research has focused on the common auditory processing of temporal regularities (Boll-Avetisyan et al, 2020;Fotidzia et al, 2018;Lagrois et al, 2019;Reybrouck & Podlipniak, 2019). These are thought to promote higher level linguistic functions (Breen et al, 2019;Frey et al, 2019;Fotidzis, et al, 2018: Richards andGoswami, 2019;Rossi et al, 2020;Snijders,et al, 2020) possibly through neuronal entrainment (Myers et al, 2019). For instance, Lagrois and colleagues (2019) found that so called beat deaf individuals, those who have beat finding deficits in music, showed deficits in synchronizing tapping with speech rhythm, and more generally, in regular tapping without external rhythms.…”