Musical literacy shifts asymmetries in the ventral visual cortex

Abstract

The acquisition of literacy has a profound impact on the functional specialization and lateralization of the visual cortex. Due to the overall lateralization of the language network, specialization for printed words develops in the left occipitotemporal cortex, allegedly inducing a secondary shift of visual face processing to the right, in literate as compared to illiterate subjects. Applying the same logic to the acquisition of high-level musical literacy, we predicted that, in musicians as compared to non-musicians, occipitotemporal activations should show a leftward shift for music reading, and an additional rightward push for face perception. To test these predictions, professional musicians and non-musicians viewed pictures of musical notation, faces, words, tools and houses in the MRI, and laterality was assessed in the ventral stream combining ROI and voxel-based approaches. The results supported both predictions, and allowed to locate the leftward shift to the inferior temporal gyrus and the rightward shift to the fusiform cortex. Moreover, these laterality shifts generalized to categories other than music and faces. Finally, correlation measures across subjects did not support a causal link between the leftward and rightward shifts. Thus the acquisition of an additional perceptual expertise extensively modifies the laterality pattern in the visual system.

Color Categorization Independent of Color Naming

“…The mask included the inferior occipital, inferior temporal, fusiform, lingual and parahippocampal gyri of both hemispheres from the AAL atlas (Tzourio-Mazoyer et al, 2002). The mask was truncated to keep only regions extending roughly between MNI y = À70 and y = À35, encompassing most of group-level activations to houses, music, words, and faces (see Figure 1 in Bouhali et al, 2017). Then, within each masked image we identified the biggest cluster of voxels surpassing a voxel-wise threshold of p = 0.005 for contrasts of tools, faces and houses versus the remaining categories.…”

Musical transposing versus sight-reading: Mapping brain activation with magnetoencephalography

“…There is evidence that learning to read musical notation results in increased efficiency in processing of melody within the superior parietal cortex and in processing of rhythm within the fusiform gyrus (Stewart, 2005). The involvement of the ventral visual cortex in reading of music has been described previously (e.g., Bouhali, Mongelli, & Cohen, 2017). To perform the four experimental tasks in this study, individual participants may have employed task strategies that affected the results.…”

Integration of Instrumental Elements and Vocal Teaching Based on Music Core Literacy

“…Literature [8] proposes a polarity-centered approach to music teaching and learning that fosters higher levels of music literacy by exploring how music professionals can promote interactions between music auroras and music literacy and eliminate racial discrimination. Literature [9] performed a secondary transfer of visual face processing to obtain high levels of musical literacy by viewing pictures of musical symbols, faces, words, tools, and houses seen in MRI and evaluated the method to conclude that higher musical literacy gains additional perceptual abilities for the functioning of the visual cortex.…”