Dataset Information

Rhythmic Effects of Syntax Processing in Music and Language.

ABSTRACT: Music and language are human cognitive and neural functions that share many structural similarities. Past theories posit a sharing of neural resources between syntax processing in music and language (Patel, 2003), and a dynamic attention network that governs general temporal processing (Large and Jones, 1999). Both make predictions about music and language processing over time. Experiment 1 of this study investigates the relationship between rhythmic expectancy and musical and linguistic syntax in a reading time paradigm. Stimuli (adapted from Slevc et al., 2009) were sentences broken down into segments; each sentence segment was paired with a musical chord and presented at a fixed inter-onset interval. Linguistic syntax violations appeared in a garden-path design. During the critical region of the garden-path sentence, i.e., the particular segment in which the syntactic unexpectedness was processed, expectancy violations for language, music, and rhythm were each independently manipulated: musical expectation was manipulated by presenting out-of-key chords and rhythmic expectancy was manipulated by perturbing the fixed inter-onset interval such that the sentence segments and musical chords appeared either early or late. Reading times were recorded for each sentence segment and compared for linguistic, musical, and rhythmic expectancy. Results showed main effects of rhythmic expectancy and linguistic syntax expectancy on reading time. There was also an effect of rhythm on the interaction between musical and linguistic syntax: effects of violations in musical and linguistic syntax showed significant interaction only during rhythmically expected trials. To test the effects of our experimental design on rhythmic and linguistic expectancies, independently of musical syntax, Experiment 2 used the same experimental paradigm, but the musical factor was eliminated-linguistic stimuli were simply presented silently, and rhythmic expectancy was manipulated at the critical region. Experiment 2 replicated effects of rhythm and language, without an interaction. Together, results suggest that the interaction of music and language syntax processing depends on rhythmic expectancy, and support a merging of theories of music and language syntax processing with dynamic models of attentional entrainment.

SUBMITTER: Jung H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4655243 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Rhythmic Effects of Syntax Processing in Music and Language.

Jung Harim H Sontag Samuel S Park YeBin S YS Loui Psyche P

Frontiers in psychology 20151123

Music and language are human cognitive and neural functions that share many structural similarities. Past theories posit a sharing of neural resources between syntax processing in music and language (Patel, 2003), and a dynamic attention network that governs general temporal processing (Large and Jones, 1999). Both make predictions about music and language processing over time. Experiment 1 of this study investigates the relationship between rhythmic expectancy and musical and linguistic syntax ...[more]

PMID: 26635672

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Project description:Objective: Perception of time as well as rhythm in musical structures rely on complex brain mechanisms and require an extended network of multiple neural sources. They are therefore sensitive to impairment. Several psychophysical studies have shown that patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have deficits in perceiving time and rhythms due to a malfunction of the basal ganglia (BG) network. Method: In this study we investigated the time perception of PD patients during music perception by assessing their just noticeable difference (JND) in the time perception of a complex musical Gestalt. We applied a temporal discrimination task using a short melody with a clear beat-based rhythm. Among the subjects, 26 patients under L-Dopa administration and 21 age-matched controls had to detect an artificially delayed time interval in the range between 80 and 300 ms in the middle of the musical period. We analyzed the data by (a) calculating the detection threshold directly, (b) by extrapolating the JNDs, (c) relating it to musical expertise. Results: Patients differed from controls in the detection of time-intervals between 220 and 300 ms (*p = 0.0200, n = 47). Furthermore, this deficit depended on the severity of the disease (*p = 0.0452; n = 47). Surprisingly, PD patients did not show any deficit of their JND compared to healthy controls, although the results showed a trend (*p = 0.0565, n = 40). Furthermore, no significant difference of the JND was found according to the severity of the disease. Additionally, musically trained persons seemed to have lower thresholds in detecting deviations in time and syntactic structures of music (*p = 0.0343, n = 39). Conclusion: As an explanation of these results, we would like to propose the hypothesis of a time-syntax-congruency in music perception suggesting that processing of time and rhythm is a Gestalt process and that cortical areas involved in processing of musical syntax may compensate for impaired BG circuits that are responsible for time processing and rhythm perception. This mechanism may emerge more strongly as the deficits in time processing and rhythm perception progress. Furthermore, we presume that top-down-bottom-up-processes interfere additionally and interact in this context of compensation.

Project description:Despite differences in their function and domain-specific elements, syntactic processing in music and language is believed to share cognitive resources. This study aims to investigate whether the simultaneous processing of language and music share the use of a common syntactic processor or more general attentional resources. To investigate this matter we tested musicians and non-musicians using visually presented sentences and aurally presented melodies containing syntactic local and long-distance dependencies. Accuracy rates and reaction times of participants' responses were collected. In both sentences and melodies, unexpected syntactic anomalies were introduced. This is the first study to address the processing of local and long-distance dependencies in language and music combined while reducing the effect of sensory memory. Participants were instructed to focus on language (language session), music (music session), or both (dual session). In the language session, musicians and non-musicians performed comparably in terms of accuracy rates and reaction times. As expected, groups' differences appeared in the music session, with musicians being more accurate in their responses than non-musicians and only the latter showing an interaction between the accuracy rates for music and language syntax. In the dual session musicians were overall more accurate than non-musicians. However, both groups showed comparable behavior, by displaying an interaction between the accuracy rates for language and music syntax responses. In our study, accuracy rates seem to better capture the interaction between language and music syntax; and this interaction seems to indicate the use of distinct, however, interacting mechanisms as part of decision making strategy. This interaction seems to be subject of an increase of attentional load and domain proficiency. Our study contributes to the long-lasting debate about the commonalities between language and music by providing evidence for their interaction at a more domain-general level.

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Rhythmic Effects of Syntax Processing in Music and Language.

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Rhythmic Effects of Syntax Processing in Music and Language.

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