An ERP study on processing numeracy

The ERPs were recorded to investigate the enumeration abilities with/without distractors, and sheds light on the relationship of subitizing and counting. The results show that the discontinuity of the effects of the variation of distractors from the subitizing range to the counting range. The electrophysiological evidences support the idea of the two processes being implemented in functional different systems. The distractor’s number variation caused different type of ERPs waveforms in two enumeration processings. The results confirmed the argument that subitizing and counting are two functionally different processings, they can be differentiated by the different effects of the variation of distractors

The perception of musical phrase structure: A cross-cultural ERP study

Electroencephalography (EEG) was used in a cross-cultural music study investigating phrase boundary perception. Chinese and German musicians performed a cultural categorization task under Chinese and Western music listening conditions. Western music was the major subject for both groups of musicians, while Chinese music was familiar to Chinese subjects only. By manipulating the presence of pauses between two phrases in the biphrasal melodies, EEG correlates for the perception of phrase boundaries were found in both groups under both music listening conditions. Between 450 and 600 ms, the music CPS (closure positive shift), which had been found in earlier studies with a false tone detection task, was replicated for the more global categorization task and for all combinations of subject group and musical style. At short latencies (100 and 450 ms post phrase boundary offset), EEG correlates varied as a function of musical styles and subject group. Both bottom-up (style properties of the music) and top-down (acculturation of the subjects) information interacted during this early processing stage.Electroencephalography (EEG) was used in a cross-cultural music study investigating phrase boundary perception. Chinese and German musicians performed a cultural categorization task under Chinese and Western music listening conditions. Western music was the major subject for both groups of musicians, while Chinese music was familiar to Chinese subjects only. By manipulating the presence of pauses between two phrases in the biphrasal melodies, EEG correlates for the perception of phrase boundaries were found in both groups under both music listening conditions. Between 450 and 600 ms, the music CPS (closure positive shift), which had been found in earlier studies with a false tone detection task, was replicated for the more global categorization task and for all combinations of subject group and musical style. At short latencies (100 and 450 ms post phrase boundary offset), EEG correlates varied as a function of musical styles and subject group. Both bottom-up (style properties of the music) and top-down (acculturation of the subjects) information interacted during this early processing stage. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Cross-cultural music phrase processing: An fMRI study

The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRl) to investigate the neural basis of musical phrase boundary processing during the perception of music from native and non-native cultures. German musicians performed a cultural categorization task while listening to phrased Western (native) and Chinese (non-native) musical excerpts as well as modified versions of these, where the impression of phrasing has been reduced by removing the phrase boundary marking pause (henceforth called "unphrased"). Bilateral planum temporale was found to be associated with an increased difficulty of identifying phrase boundaries in unphrased Western melodies. A network involving frontal and parietal regions showed increased activation for the phrased condition with the orbital part of left inferior frontal gyrus presumably reflecting working memory aspects of the temporal integration between phrases, and the middle frontal gyrus and intraparietal sulcus probably reflecting attention processes. Areas more active in the culturally familiar, native (Western) condition included, in addition to the left planum temporale and right ventro-medial prefrontal cortex, mainly the bilateral motor regions. These latter results are interpreted in light of sensorimotor integration. Regions with increased signal for the unfamiliar, non-native music style (Chinese) included a right lateralized network of angular gyrus and the middle frontal gyrus, possibly reflecting higher demands on attention systems, and the right posterior insula suggesting higher loads on basic auditory processing.The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRl) to investigate the neural basis of musical phrase boundary processing during the perception of music from native and non-native cultures. German musicians performed a cultural categorization task while listening to phrased Western (native) and Chinese (non-native) musical excerpts as well as modified versions of these, where the impression of phrasing has been reduced by removing the phrase boundary marking pause (henceforth called "unphrased"). Bilateral planum temporale was found to be associated with an increased difficulty of identifying phrase boundaries in unphrased Western melodies. A network involving frontal and parietal regions showed increased activation for the phrased condition with the orbital part of left inferior frontal gyrus presumably reflecting working memory aspects of the temporal integration between phrases, and the middle frontal gyrus and intraparietal sulcus probably reflecting attention processes. Areas more active in the culturally familiar, native (Western) condition included, in addition to the left planum temporale and right ventro-medial prefrontal cortex, mainly the bilateral motor regions. These latter results are interpreted in light of sensorimotor integration. Regions with increased signal for the unfamiliar, non-native music style (Chinese) included a right lateralized network of angular gyrus and the middle frontal gyrus, possibly reflecting higher demands on attention systems, and the right posterior insula suggesting higher loads on basic auditory processing

Musica: Lingua Mundi

“The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; the motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let not such man be trusted”: this is what one can read in Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice. That music has always been an essential part of human life is beyond question and that man, at the origin of his existence, first sang before speaking is a view which most men hold. Music has been often associated with emotions and language, and most scholars and linguists agree that language stems from music, and that music is a primordial and archaic language used by primitive men to communicate and strengthen their relationships with their own culture and society. Quoting Rousseau one can read that : […]les prémiers discours furent les prémiéres chansons: les retours périodique et mesurés du rhytme, les infléxions melodieuses des accens firent naitre la poesie et la musique avec la langue, ou plustôt tout cela n’étoit que la langue même pour ces heureux climats et ces heureux tems où les seuls besoins pressans qui demandoient le concours d’autrui étoint ceux que le cœur faisoit naitre. Modern studies are trying to figure out why music influences human emotions as it does. Various researches empirically explain how music affects the human brain, mind and consciousness. Music is also said to have the capacity to blend and therefore to retain stable traces of cultural contact in a way that languages do only inefficiently; languages tend to undergo total replacement rather than blending after cultural contact, and thus tend to lose remnants of cultural interaction. And what about the relationship between modern languages and music? Is music still considered a language? And what relations does it maintain with verbal language? It is often considered as an imitation or expression of human emotions and believed to have a special relationship with man’s inner space rather than with rationality and concepts. Obviously, however, it must have some kind of link with language if one thinks that it has always been associated with it for centuries. Lacking the narrative and objectual structures to which one is accustomed in language, music frequently has an affinity with the amorphous, archaic and extremely powerful emotional materials of childhood. Another way of expressing the point is that music seems to elude our self-protective devices, our techniques of manipulation and control, in such a way that it seems to write directly into man’s inner soul. Why can people, affected by aphasia, sing or process music better than language? Why subjects affected by Parkinson, Tourette, Alzheimer diseases can sing or dance but cannot speak, walk or coordinate motorial functions? Why is language acquisition more flexible in children than in adults but this is not true with music which can always be acquired? Can one support the idea that music, as water, evoke man’s primordial forces and life? My intended work rises from these observations and intends to explain how music may be used pragmatically towards foreign language acquisition and, extensively, language processing and whether a critical or receptive period exists also for it. To tell the truth, cognitive psychology affirms that listeners unconsciously abstract and store structural information from the music they hear, thereby establishing longstanding mental representations that shape their subsequent musical perception. But what happens to the human brain when listening to music? How does music influence human perception? As Friedrich Nietzsche said “without music, life would be a mistake”, can we agree with him