The Connectivity of Musical Aptitude and Foreign Language Learning Skills: Neural and Behavioural Evidence

Given the structural and acoustical similarities between speech and music, and possible overlapping cerebral structures in speech and music processing, a possible relationship between musical aptitude and linguistic abilities, especially in terms of second language pronunciation skills, was investigated. Moreover, the laterality effect of the mother tongue was examined with both adults and children by means of dichotic listening scores. Finally, two event-related potential studies sought to reveal whether children with advanced second language pronunciation skills and higher general musical aptitude differed from children with less-advanced pronunciation skills and less musical aptitude in accuracy when preattentively processing mistuned triads and music / speech sound durations. The results showed a significant relationship between musical aptitude, English language pronunciation skills, chord discrimination ability, and sound-change-evoked brain activation in response to musical stimuli (durational differences and triad contrasts). Regular music practice may also have a modulatory effect on the brain’s linguistic organization and cause altered hemispheric functioning in those who have regularly practised music for years. Based on the present results, it is proposed that language skills, both in production and discrimination, are interconnected with perceptual musical skills.Siirretty Doriast

The Interplay between Musical and Linguistic Aptitudes: A Review

According to prevailing views, brain organization is modulated by practice, e.g., during musical or linguistic training. Most recent results, using both neuropsychological tests and brain measures, revealed an intriguing connection between musical aptitude and second language linguistic abilities. A significant relationship between higher musical aptitude, better second language pronunciation skills, accurate chord discrimination ability, and more prominent sound-change-evoked brain activation in response to musical stimuli was found. Moreover, regular music practice may also have a modulatory effect on the brain’s linguistic organization and alter hemispheric functioning in those who have regularly practised music for years. These findings, together with their implications, will be introduced and elaborated in our review

Musical aptitude and foreign language learning skills - neural and behavioral evidence about their connections

Perceiving music and language seems to depend upon subtle and accurate auditory processing skills. Could music and language also share common neural resources? Possible interaction between music and speech memory systems has not been ruled out. On the contrary, there is increasing evidence pointing out the accuracy at perceiving phonetic contrasts in native or foreign language of subjects with musical aptitude or musical training. The main focus of this study was to examine the relationship between musical aptitude and linguistic abilities, especially in terms of second language pronunciation skills. We examined 10-12-year-old elementary school children’s ability to preattentively process musical features in music and speech stimuli. Sound processing accuracy was examined by means of event-related potential (ERP) recordings and behavioural measures. Those children with superior performance in foreign language production and musicality tests seem to show more pronounced sound-change-evoked activation in response to the music stimuli than subjects with less accurate linguistic skills. Our study provides further evidence for the claim that musical aptitude and linguistic skills are interconnected

Modification of dichotic listening (DL) performance by musico-linguistic abilities and age. Brain research

To increase our understanding of the phonemic processing skills of musical and nonmusical subjects, the Dichotic Listening task was performed in children and adults with varying degrees of musical aptitude. The roles of maturation and musical training were also Introduction Since the early findings of Broca, observations and theories on hemispheric specialization have been the focus of neuropsychological research. Clinical and experimental studies suggest that the left hemisphere of the brain is specialized for speech processing and the right hemisphere deals with different nonlinguistic material, such as music In the dichotic listening technique, two different auditory stimuli are presented at the same time, one in each ea