Preserved processing of musical structure in a person with agrammatic aphasia

Slevc, L. Robert; Faroqi‐Shah, Yasmeen; Saxena, Sadhvi; Okada, Brooke M.

doi:10.1080/13554794.2016.1177090

Cited by 15 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…We further found that the ability to make well-formedness judgments about the tonal structure of music was preserved in severely aphasic patients who cannot make grammaticality judgments for sentences (Figure 5). These results align with prior neuropsychological patient evidence of language/music dissociations (e.g., Luria et al, 1965;Brust, 1980;Marin, 1982;Basso & Capitani, 1985;Polk & Kertesz, 1993;Peretz & Coltheart, 2003;Slevc et al, 2016), but stand in sharp contrast to numerous reports arguing for shared structure processing mechanisms in the two domains (e.g., Patel et al, 1998;Koelsch et al, 2000;Maess et al, 2001;Koelsch et al, 2002;Levitin & Menon, 2003; see Kunert & Slevc, 2015;LaCroix et al, 2016, for reviews). Below, we discuss several issues that are relevant for interpreting the current results and/or that these results inform, and outline some limitations of scope of our study.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…If language and music relied on the same syntactic processing mechanism, individuals impaired in their processing of linguistic syntax should also exhibit impairments in musical syntax. Although some prior studies report subtle musical deficits in patients with aphasia (Patel et al, 2008;Sammler et al, 2011), the evidence is equivocal, and many aphasic patients appear to have little or no difficulties with music, including the processing of music structure (Luria et al, 1965;Brust, 1980;Marin, 1982;Basso & Capitani, 1985;Polk & Kertesz, 1993;Slevc et al, 2016). Similarly, children with Specific Language Impairment-a developmental disorder that affects several aspects of linguistic and cognitive processing, including syntactic processing (e.g., Bortolini et al, 1998;Bishop & Norbury, 2002)-show no impairments in musical processing (Fancourt, 2013).…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

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The human language system, including its inferior frontal component in ‘Broca’s area’, does not support music perception

Chen

Affourtit

Ryskin

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Language and music are two human-unique capacities whose relationship remains debated. Some argue for overlap in processing mechanisms, especially for structure processing, but others fail to find overlap. Using fMRI, we examined the responses of language brain regions to diverse music stimuli, and also probed the musical abilities of individuals with severe aphasia. Across four experiments, we obtained a clear answer: music does not recruit nor requires the language system. The language regions′ responses to music are generally low and never exceed responses elicited by non-music auditory conditions, like animal sounds. Further, the language regions are not sensitive to music structure: they show low responses to both intact and scrambled music, and to melodies with vs. without structural violations. Finally, individuals with aphasia who cannot judge sentence grammaticality perform well on melody well-formedness judgments. Thus the mechanisms that process structure in language do not appear to support music processing.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

The human language system, including its inferior frontal component in ‘Broca’s area’, does not support music perception

Chen

Affourtit

Ryskin

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Indeed, a number of behavioral and neuroscientific studies in adults and children have supported the idea of shared online processing (Koelsch et al, 2002; Jentschke et al, 2008; Fedorenko et al, 2009; Jentschke and Koelsch, 2009; Sammler et al, 2009; Schön et al, 2010; Slevc et al, 2013; Kunert et al, 2015). Studies of brain damage has offered findings sometimes consistent with the shared resources approach (e.g., agrammatic Broca’s aphasia associated with failure to process musical syntax: Patel et al, 2008) but has also found dissociations (e.g., impaired processing of harmonic relations with linguistic syntactic processing intact, Peretz et al, 1994, or impaired grammatical processing of language with preserved musical syntax, Slevc et al, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Born to Speak and Sing: Musical Predictors of Language Development in Pre-schoolers

et al. 2019

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The relationship between musical and linguistic skills has received particular attention in infants and school-aged children. However, very little is known about pre-schoolers. This leaves a gap in our understanding of the concurrent development of these skills during development. Moreover, attention has been focused on the effects of formal musical training, while neglecting the influence of informal musical activities at home. To address these gaps, in Study 1, 3- and 4-year-old children ( n = 40) performed novel musical tasks (perception and production) adapted for young children in order to examine the link between musical skills and the development of key language capacities, namely grammar and phonological awareness. In Study 2, we investigated the influence of informal musical experience at home on musical and linguistic skills of young pre-schoolers, using the same evaluation tools. We found systematic associations between distinct musical and linguistic skills. Rhythm perception and production were the best predictors of phonological awareness, while melody perception was the best predictor of grammar acquisition, a novel association not previously observed in developmental research. These associations could not be explained by variability in general cognitive functioning, such as verbal memory and non-verbal abilities. Thus, selective music-related auditory and motor skills are likely to underpin different aspects of language development and can be dissociated in pre-schoolers. We also found that informal musical experience at home contributes to the development of grammar. An effect of musical skills on both phonological awareness and language grammar is mediated by home musical experience. These findings pave the way for the development of dedicated musical activities for pre-schoolers to support specific areas of language development.

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“…Disorders in music and language provide another avenue to examine the resource-sharing hypothesis. Music-syntactic deficits have been observed in patients with lesions in “typical language brain areas” (e.g., Patel et al, 2008 ; Sammler et al, 2011 ; but such disorders can also arise following damage to other regions, see Peretz, 1993 and Slevc et al, 2016 ), and in children with developmental language disorders (e.g., Jentschke et al, 2008 ). Language impairments have also been reported for some individuals with acquired amusia (e.g., Sarkamo et al, 2009 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Syntactic processing in music and language: Parallel abnormalities observed in congenital amusia

Sun

et al. 2018

NeuroImage: Clinical

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Evidence is accumulating that similar cognitive resources are engaged to process syntactic structure in music and language. Congenital amusia – a neurodevelopmental disorder that primarily affects music perception, including musical syntax – provides a special opportunity to understand the nature of this overlap. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we investigated whether individuals with congenital amusia have parallel deficits in processing language syntax in comparison to control participants. Twelve amusic participants (eight females) and 12 control participants (eight females) were presented melodies in one session, and spoken sentences in another session, both of which had syntactic-congruent and -incongruent stimuli. They were asked to complete a music-related and a language-related task that were irrelevant to the syntactic incongruities. Our results show that amusic participants exhibit impairments in the early stages of both music- and language-syntactic processing. Specifically, we found that two event-related potential (ERP) components – namely Early Right Anterior Negativity (ERAN) and Left Anterior Negativity (LAN), associated with music- and language-syntactic processing respectively, were absent in the amusia group. However, at later processing stages, amusics showed similar brain responses as controls to syntactic incongruities in both music and language. This was reflected in a normal N5 in response to melodies and a normal P600 to spoken sentences. Notably, amusics' parallel music- and language-syntactic impairments were not accompanied by deficits in semantic processing (indexed by normal N400 in response to semantic incongruities). Together, our findings provide further evidence for shared music and language syntactic processing, particularly at early stages of processing.

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Preserved processing of musical structure in a person with agrammatic aphasia

Cited by 15 publications

References 37 publications

The human language system, including its inferior frontal component in ‘Broca’s area’, does not support music perception

The human language system, including its inferior frontal component in ‘Broca’s area’, does not support music perception

Born to Speak and Sing: Musical Predictors of Language Development in Pre-schoolers

Syntactic processing in music and language: Parallel abnormalities observed in congenital amusia

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