Melodic and rhythmic scores.

<p>Individual melodic scores (averaged across the scale, contour and interval tests) and rhythmic scores obtained on the MBEA. Maximum score is 30; chance = 15.</p

Congenital Amusia Persists in the Developing Brain after Daily Music Listening

<div><p>Congenital amusia is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects about 3% of the adult population. Adults experiencing this musical disorder in the absence of macroscopically visible brain injury are described as cases of congenital amusia under the assumption that the musical deficits have been present from birth. Here, we show that this disorder can be expressed in the developing brain. We found that (10–13 year-old) children exhibit a marked deficit in the detection of fine-grained pitch differences in both musical and acoustical context in comparison to their normally developing peers comparable in age and general intelligence. This behavioral deficit could be traced down to their abnormal P300 brain responses to the detection of subtle pitch changes. The altered pattern of electrical activity does not seem to arise from an anomalous functioning of the auditory cortex, because all early components of the brain potentials, the N100, the MMN, and the P200 appear normal. Rather, the brain and behavioral measures point to disrupted information propagation from the auditory cortex to other cortical regions. Furthermore, the behavioral and neural manifestations of the disorder remained unchanged after 4 weeks of daily musical listening. These results show that congenital amusia can be detected in childhood despite regular musical exposure and normal intellectual functioning.</p> </div

Preattentive brain responses to pitch changes.

<p>Grand-average ERPs for amusic and controls, in the MMN task, recorded at electrode Fz before and after the daily music listening program. Arrows indicate the MMN.</p

Preattentive brain responses to equally frequent tones.

<p>Grand-average ERPs for amusics and controls, elicited by the equally frequent tones, recorded at electrode Cz before and after the daily music listening program. Arrows indicate the N100 and the P200.</p

Characteristics of participants and standard neuropsychological tests results.

*<p> = Participants who were not re-tested.</p><p>Individual age, education, gender and music listening habits are presented along with the scaled scores obtained on the similarities, matrix and picture completion tests of the WISC-IV, and on the scale test of the MBEA (maximum score  = 30; chance score  = 15).</p

Non-melodic task: <i>50 cents > Identical</i>.

<p>Non-melodic task: <i>50 cents > Identical</i>.</p

Melodic pitch discrimination (Melodic [<i>Out-of-tune > In-tune</i>] > Non-melodic [<i>50 cents > Identical</i>]).

<p>Melodic pitch discrimination (Melodic [<i>Out-of-tune > In-tune</i>] > Non-melodic [<i>50 cents > Identical</i>]).</p

Behavioral results for the non-melodic task.

<p>Participants’ (A) accuracy (% correct), (B) confidence (% sure) and (C) reaction time (ms) for the non-melodic task. Results are presented as a function of experimental condition (i.e. Identical, 6.25, 12.50 and 50 cents). For the Identical condition in panel (A), accuracy reflects the proportion of “higher in pitch” responses, and thus accuracy of 50% is indicative of non-biased responses.</p

Behavioral results for the melodic task.

<p>Participants’ (A) accuracy (% correct), (B) confidence (% sure) and (C) reaction time (ms) for the melodic task. Results are presented as a function of experimental condition (i.e. in-tune, out-of-key, out-of-tune).</p

Melodic task.

<p>Half the melodies were in-tune, 25% were out-of-tune and 25% were out-of-key. The out-of-tune and out-of-key melodies were created by altering the last note of the in–tune melodies, by shifting them by either 50 cents (out-of-tune) or 100 cents (out-of-key). In the melodic task, participants judged whether a melody contained an incongruous note. Their judgment as well as their level of confidence were recorded for each trial on a four point scale (1-congruous, sure; 2-congruous, not sure; 3-incongruous, not sure; 4-incongruous, sure).</p