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

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

Does running in synchrony with sound improve endurance performance and save energy?

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Music Agnosias: Selective Impairments of Music Recognition After Brain Damage

ABSTRACT Neuropsychological findings suggest that music is a special faculty (e.g., with respect to language) by being carried out by dedicated processes that are subserved by distinct anatomical brain structures. In the present paper, we review the evidence provided by brain-damaged patients who suffer from music agnosia, a selective impairment in music recognition. Three cases of music agnosia (C.N., G.L., and I.R.) without concomitant disorders and previously described independently are compared, with respect to the specificity issue

Born to speak and sing: musical predictors of language development in pre-schoolers

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

Studio di fattibilità tecnico-economica di un carrello semovente per la movimentazione interna di telai di grandi dimensioni

In questa tesi si analizzerà una possibile variazione dell’attuale ciclo di fabbricazione di prodotti attraverso la progettazione di un carro semovente, al fine di ridurre i tempi di lavoro eliminando operazioni e agevolando gli operatori, e ne sarà valutata la fattibilità economica. La tesi è stata condotta in collaborazione con l’azienda De Angelis S.p.A., situata nel comune di Ravenna

Studio e ottimizzazione dei tempi in una nuova linea di montaggio di macchine per gelato

Rilevazione e studio dei tempi di un processo di produzione di una macchina per gelato presso l'azienda Carpigiani, stabilimento di Forlì

Temporal malleability to auditory feedback perturbation is modulated by rhythmic abilities and auditory acuity

Auditory feedback perturbation studies have indicated a link between feedback and feedforward mechanisms in speech production when participants compensate for applied shifts. In spectral perturbation studies, speakers with a higher perceptual auditory acuity typically compensate more than individuals with lower acuity. However, the reaction to feedback perturbation is unlikely to be merely a matter of perceptual acuity but also affected by the prediction and production of precise motor action. This interplay between prediction, perception, and motor execution seems to be crucial for the timing of speech and non-speech motor actions. In this study, to examine the relationship between the responses to temporally perturbed auditory feedback and rhythmic abilities, we tested 45 adult speakers on the one hand with a temporal auditory feedback perturbation paradigm, and on the other hand with rhythm perception and production tasks. The perturbation tasks temporally stretched and compressed segments (onset + vowel or vowel + coda) in fluent speech in real-time. This technique sheds light on the temporal representation and the production flexibility of timing mechanisms in fluent speech with respect to the structure of the syllable. The perception tasks contained staircase paradigms capturing duration discrimination abilities and beat-alignment judgments. The rhythm production tasks consisted of finger tapping tasks taken from the BAASTA tapping battery and additional speech tapping tasks. We found that both auditory acuity and motor stability in finger tapping affected responses to temporal auditory feedback perturbation. In general, speakers with higher auditory acuity and higher motor variability compensated more. However, we observed a different weighting of auditory acuity and motor stability dependent on the prosodic structure of the perturbed sequence and the nature of the response as purely online or adaptive. These findings shed light on the interplay of phonological structure with feedback and feedforward integration for timing mechanisms in speech

The Phonological Process of Batak Toba Language

Indonesia terkenal dengan kekayaan akan budaya yang diwariskan oleh nenek moyang. Bahasa daerah merupakan salah satu yang termasuk didalamnya. Sebagai bentuk penghargaan terhadap bahasa itu, maka sangat perlu dilakukan penelitian tentang apa saja unsur-unsur yang terkandung di dalamnya. Dalam kesempatan ini, penulis mengambil kesempatan untuk menganalisis sebuah bahasa daerah yaitu bahasa Batak Toba. Dimana status penulis sekaligus sebagai penutur asli bahasa Batak Toba telah memberikan kemudahan dalam melakukan penelitian. Penelitian ini ialah tentang analisis beberapa proses fonologis Bahasa Batak Toba. Tujuannya adalah mendeskripsikan jenis-jenis proses fonologis yang terdapat dalam bahasa Batak Toba. Penulis mengoleksi data dari sebuah Kamus Bahasa Batak Toba-Indonesia yang disusun oleh Drs. Richard Sinaga sebagai data utama dan kosakata di luar dari kamus tersebut sebagai data sekunder. Masalah yang dikaji fokus pada kosa kata bahasa Batak Toba yang ada di dalam kamus tersebut yaitu tentang pengklasifikasian kata berdasarkan jenis-jenis proses fonologis yang ada. Untuk menjawab masalah tersebut, penulis melakukan penelitian dengan metode penelitian deskriptif kualitatif. Dari hasil penelitian tersebut terdapat empat macam proses fonologis di dalam bahasa Batak Toba yaitu: assimilation, metathesis, addition dan reduction

Entrainment: A domain general cognitive timing mechanism?

From an early age onwards we tend to synchronize to temporally regular and rhythmic stimuli, such as the beat in music, which inevitably leads to movement. Recently, such basic mapping of temporally regular sound and motor behavior has been critically discussed and the four speakers of this symposium will address extensions of a basic sensorimotor conceptualization of entrainment in their talks. M. Henry and colleagues discuss oscillatory entrainment in perception only, while E. Large puts to test whether oscillatory entrainment simply mirrors stimulus frequency when movement is coupled with syncopated rhythm. J. Grahn explores whether non-beat related factors impact synchronization in movement, while S. Dalla-Bella confers how stimulus complexity affects people's capacity to synchronize finger tapping but also perception. The symposium will be discussed by V. Penhune