Evidence for Shared Cognitive Processing of Pitch in Music and Language

Language and music epitomize the complex representational and computational capacities of the human mind. Strikingly similar in their structural and expressive features, a longstanding question is whether the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms underlying these abilities are shared or distinct – either from each other or from other mental processes. One prominent feature shared between language and music is signal encoding using pitch, conveying pragmatics and semantics in language and melody in music. We investigated how pitch processing is shared between language and music by measuring consistency in individual differences in pitch perception across language, music, and three control conditions intended to assess basic sensory and domain-general cognitive processes. Individuals’ pitch perception abilities in language and music were most strongly related, even after accounting for performance in all control conditions. These results provide behavioral evidence, based on patterns of individual differences, that is consistent with the hypothesis that cognitive mechanisms for pitch processing may be shared between language and music.National Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowship ProgramEunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) (Grant 5K99HD057522

Meditation and cognitive ageing: The role of mindfulness meditation in building cognitive reserve

Mindfulness-related meditation practices engage various cognitive skills including the ability to focus and sustain attention, which in itself requires several interacting attentional sub-functions. There is increasing behavioural and neuroscientific evidence that mindfulness meditation improves these functions and associated neural processes. More so than other cognitive training programmes, the effects of meditation appear to generalise to other cognitive tasks, thus demonstrating far transfer effects. As these attentional functions have been linked to age-related cognitive decline, there is growing interest in the question whether meditation can slow-down or even prevent such decline. The cognitive reserve hypothesis builds on evidence that various lifestyle factors can lead to better cognitive performance in older age than would be predicted by the existing degree of brain pathology. We argue that mindfulness meditation, as a combination of brain network and brain state training, may increase cognitive reserve capacity and may mitigate age-related declines in cognitive functions. We consider available direct and indirect evidence from the perspective of cognitive reserve theory. The limited available evidence suggests that MM may enhance cognitive reserve capacity directly through the repeated activation of attentional functions and of the multiple demand system and indirectly through the improvement of physiological mechanisms associated with stress and immune function. The article concludes with outlining research strategies for addressing underlying empirical questions in more substantial ways