Can nonlinguistic musical training change the way the brain processes speech? The expanded OPERA hypothesis

Effects of absolute pitch on brain activation and functional connectivity during hearing-in-noise perception

Hearing-in-noise (HIN) ability is crucial in speech and music communication. Recent evidence suggests that absolute pitch (AP), the ability to identify isolated musical notes, is associated with HIN benefits. A theoretical account postulates a link between AP ability and neural network indices of segregation. However, how AP ability modulates the brain activation and functional connectivity underlying HIN perception remains unclear. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to contrast brain responses among a sample (n = 45) comprising 15 AP musicians, 15 non-AP musicians, and 15 non-musicians in perceiving Mandarin speech and melody targets under varying signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs: No-Noise, 0, -9 dB). Results reveal that AP musicians exhibited increased activation in auditory and superior frontal regions across both HIN domains (music and speech), irrespective of noise levels. Notably, substantially higher sensorimotor activation was found in AP musicians when the target was music compared to speech. Furthermore, we examined AP effects on neural connectivity using psychophysiological interaction analysis with the auditory cortex as the seed region. AP musicians showed decreased functional connectivity with the sensorimotor and middle frontal gyrus compared to non-AP musicians. Crucially, AP differentially affected connectivity with parietal and frontal brain regions depending on the HIN domain being music or speech. These findings suggest that AP plays a critical role in HIN perception, manifested by increased activation and functional independence between auditory and sensorimotor regions for perceiving music and speech streams.

Generalization of auditory expertise in audio engineers and instrumental musicians

From auditory perception to general cognition, the ability to play a musical instrument has been associated with skills both related and unrelated to music. However, it is unclear if these effects are bound to the specific characteristics of musical instrument training, as little attention has been paid to other populations such as audio engineers and designers whose auditory expertise may match or surpass that of musicians in specific auditory tasks or more naturalistic acoustic scenarios. We explored this possibility by comparing students of audio engineering (n = 20) to matched conservatory-trained instrumentalists (n = 24) and to naive controls (n = 20) on measures of auditory discrimination, auditory scene analysis, and speech in noise perception. We found that audio engineers and performing musicians had generally lower psychophysical thresholds than controls, with pitch perception showing the largest effect size. Compared to controls, audio engineers could better memorise and recall auditory scenes composed of non-musical sounds, whereas instrumental musicians performed best in a sustained selective attention task with two competing streams of tones. Finally, in a diotic speech-in-babble task, musicians showed lower signal-to-noise-ratio thresholds than both controls and engineers; however, a follow-up online study did not replicate this musician advantage. We also observed differences in personality that might account for group-based self-selection biases. Overall, we showed that investigating a wider range of forms of auditory expertise can help us corroborate (or challenge) the specificity of the advantages previously associated with musical instrument training.

Validation and applicability of the music ear test on a large Chinese sample

In the context of extensive disciplinary integration, researchers worldwide have increasingly focused on musical ability. However, despite the wide range of available music ability tests, there remains a dearth of validated tests applicable to China. The Music Ear Test (MET) is a validated scale that has been reported to be potentially suitable for cross-cultural distribution in a Chinese sample. However, no formal translation and cross-cultural reliability/validity tests have been conducted for the Chinese population in any of the studies using the Music Ear Test. This study aims to assess the factor structure, convergence, predictiveness, and validity of the Chinese version of the MET, based on a large sample of Chinese participants (n≥1235). Furthermore, we seek to determine whether variables such as music training level, response pattern, and demographic data such as gender and age have intervening effects on the results. In doing so, we aim to provide clear indications of musical aptitude and expertise by validating an existing instrument, the Music Ear Test, and provide a valid method for further understanding the musical abilities of the Chinese sample.

Exploring the role of singing, semantics, and amusia screening in speech-in-noise perception in musicians and non-musicians

Sentence repetition has been the focus of extensive psycholinguistic research. The notion that music training can bolster speech perception in adverse auditory conditions has been met with mixed results. In this work, we sought to gauge the effect of babble noise on immediate repetition of spoken and sung phrases of varying semantic content (expository, narrative, and anomalous), initially in 100 English-speaking monolinguals with and without music training. The two cohorts also completed some non-musical cognitive tests and the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA). When disregarding MBEA results, musicians were found to significantly outperform non-musicians in terms of overall repetition accuracy. Sung targets were recalled significantly better than spoken ones across groups in the presence of babble noise. Sung expository targets were recalled better than spoken expository ones, and semantically anomalous content was recalled more poorly in noise. Rerunning the analysis after eliminating thirteen participants who were diagnosed with amusia showed no significant group differences. This suggests that the notion of enhanced speech perception-in noise or otherwise-in musicians needs to be evaluated with caution. Musicianship aside, this study showed for the first time that sung targets presented in babble noise seem to be recalled better than spoken ones. We discuss the present design and the methodological approach of screening for amusia as factors which may partially account for some of the mixed results in the field.

The Cerebral Cortex and the Songs of Homer: When Neuroscience Meets History and Literature

In this article we reconsider Homer's poetry in the light of modern achievements in neuroscience. This perspective offers some clues for examining specific patterns of brain functioning. Homer's epics, for instance, painted a synthetic picture of the human body, emphasizing some parts and neglecting others. This led to the formation of a body schema reminiscent of a homunculus, which we call the "Homeric homunculus." Both poems were largely the product of centuries of oral tradition, in which the prodigious memory of courtly rhapsodists was essential to the performance of the epics. The underlying cognitive functions required a close interplay of memory and language skills, supported by the musical and rhythmic cadence of Homeric verse.

Music training affects listeners' processing of different types of accentuation information: Evidence from ERPs

Previous studies found that prolonged musical training can promote language processing, but few studies have examined whether and how musical training affects the processing of accentuation in spoken language. In this study, a vocabulary detection task was conducted, with Chinese single sentences as materials, to investigate how musicians and non-musicians process corrective accent and information accent in the sentence-middle and sentence-final positions. In the sentence-middle position, results of the cluster-based permutation t-tests showed significant differences in the 574-714 ms time window for the control group. In the sentence-final position, the cluster-based permutation t-tests revealed significant differences in the 612-810 ms time window for the music group and in the 616-812 ms time window for the control group. These significant positive effects were induced by the processing of information accent relative to that of corrective accent. These results suggest that both groups were able to distinguish corrective accent from information accent, but they processed the two accent types differently in the sentence-middle position. These findings show that musical training has a cross-domain effect on spoken language processing and that the accent position also affects its processing.

Sequence Processing in Music Predicts Reading Skills in Young Readers: A Longitudinal Study

Musical abilities, both in the pitch and temporal dimension, have been shown to be positively associated with phonological awareness and reading abilities in both children and adults. There is increasing evidence that the relationship between music and language relies primarily on the temporal dimension, including both meter and rhythm. It remains unclear to what extent skill level in these temporal aspects of music may uniquely contribute to the prediction of reading outcomes. A longitudinal design was used to test a group-administered musical sequence transcription task (MSTT). This task was designed to preferentially engage sequence processing skills while controlling for fine-grained pitch discrimination and rhythm in terms of temporal grouping. Forty-five children, native speakers of Portuguese (Mage = 7.4 years), completed the MSTT and a cognitive-linguistic protocol that included visual and auditory working memory tasks, as well as phonological awareness and reading tasks in second grade. Participants then completed reading assessments in third and fifth grades. Longitudinal regression models showed that MSTT and phonological awareness had comparable power to predict reading. The MSTT showed an overall classification accuracy for identifying low-achievement readers in Grades 2, 3, and 5 that was analogous to a comprehensive model including core predictors of reading disability. In addition, MSTT was the variable with the highest loading and the most discriminatory indicator of a phonological factor. These findings carry implications for the role of temporal sequence processing in contributing to the relationship between music and language and the potential use of MSTT as a language-independent, time- and cost-effective tool for the early identification of children at risk of reading disability.

The relationship between music training and cognitive flexibility: an ERP study

Background

Music training involves several cognitive functions in the brain, particularly executive function. Numerous studies have proven a link between the two. Cognitive flexibility is an important component of executive function, however, there has been little study investigating the association between music training and cognitive flexibility.

Method

Music training (N = 22) and the control groups (N = 26) were included in the present study. A tone-related oddball task was used to investigate the tone-related inhibition and the switch task was to investigate cognitive flexibility. During the switch task, EEG data were collected.

Results

The behavioral results of the oddball task showed that the individuals in the music training group had a shorter reaction time and higher accuracy in both the between-tone and within-tone categories compared to the controls. The behavioral results of the switch task showed similar results, with the music training group exhibiting better reaction time and accuracy performance than the controls. ERP results showed that the music training group had smaller P3 amplitudes and greater N2 and N450 amplitudes than the control group.

Discussion

The findings further supported the link between music training and enhanced cognitive function.

The Impact of Musical Rehabilitation on Complex Sound Perception in Cochlear Implant Users: A Systematic Review

OBJECTIVE

Musical rehabilitation has been used in clinical and nonclinical contexts to improve postimplantation auditory processing in implanted individuals. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the efficacy of music rehabilitation in controlled experimental and quasi-experimental studies on cochlear implant (CI) user speech and music perception.

DATABASES REVIEWED

PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, PsycARTICLES, and PsycINFO databases through July 2022.

METHODS

Controlled experimental trials and prospective studies were included if they compared pretest and posttest data and excluded hearing aid-only users. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines were then used to extract data from 11 included studies with a total of 206 pediatric and adult participants. Interventions included group music therapy, melodic contour identification training, auditory-motor instruction, or structured digital music training. Studies used heterogeneous outcome measures evaluating speech and music perception. Risk of bias was assessed using the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Quality Assessment Tool.

RESULTS

A total of 735 studies were screened, and 11 met the inclusion criteria. Six trials reported both speech and music outcomes, whereas five reported only music perception outcomes after the intervention relative to control. For music perception outcomes, significant findings included improvements in melodic contour identification (five studies, p < 0.05), timbre recognition (three studies, p < 0.05), and song appraisal (three studies, p < 0.05) in their respective trials. For speech prosody outcomes, only vocal emotion identification demonstrated significant improvements (two studies, p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Music rehabilitation improves performance on multiple measures of music perception, as well as tone-based characteristics of speech (i.e., emotional prosody). This suggests that rehabilitation may facilitate improvements in the discrimination of spectrally complex signals.

An integrated review of music cognition and rhythmic stimuli in sensorimotor neurocognition and neurorehabilitation

This work reviews the growing body of interdisciplinary research on music cognition, using biomechanical, kinesiological, clinical, psychosocial, and sociological methods. The review primarily examines the relationship between temporal elements in music and motor responses under varying contexts, with considerable relevance for clinical rehabilitation. After providing an overview of the terminology and approaches pertinent to theories of rhythm and meter from the musical-theoretical and cognitive fields, this review focuses on studies on the effects of rhythmic sensory stimulation on gait, rhythmic cues' effect on the motor system, reactions to rhythmic stimuli attempting to synchronize mobility (i.e., musical embodiment), and the application of rhythm for motor rehabilitation for individuals with Parkinson's disease, stroke, mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, and other neurodegenerative or neurotraumatic diseases. This work ultimately bridges the gap between the musical-theoretical and cognitive science fields to facilitate innovative research in which each discipline informs the other.

Speech Production in Healthy Older Adults With or Without Amateur Singing Experience

PURPOSE

Amateur singing is a universal, accessible, and enjoyable musical activity that may have positive impacts on human communication. However, evidence of an impact of singing on speech articulation is still scarce, yet understanding the effects of vocal training on speech production could provide a model for treating people with speech deficits. The aim of this study was to examine speech production in younger and older adults with or without amateur singing experience.

METHOD

Thirty-eight amateur singers (aged 20-87 years, 23 women and 15 men) and 40 nonmusician active controls (aged 23-88 years, 19 women and 21 men) were recruited. A set of tasks were used to evaluate the oral motor sphere: two voice production tasks, a passage reading task, and a modified diadochokinetic (DDK) rates task performed at a natural rhythm and as quickly as possible.

RESULTS

Our results show that older age was associated with lower reading rate, lower articulation rate, and articulation rate variability in the DDK task, as well as reduced accuracy for the phonologically complex stimuli. Most importantly, our results show an advantage for singers over cognitively active nonsingers in terms of articulatory accuracy in the most challenging situations.

CONCLUSION

This result suggests extended maximal performance capacities in amateur singers perhaps resulting from the articulatory efforts required during singing.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24274813.

The modulating effect of musical expertise on lexical-semantic prediction in speech-in-noise comprehension: Evidence from an EEG study

Musical expertise has been proposed to facilitate speech perception and comprehension in noisy environments. This study further examined the open question of whether musical expertise modulates high-level lexical-semantic prediction to aid online speech comprehension in noisy backgrounds. Musicians and nonmusicians listened to semantically strongly/weakly constraining sentences during EEG recording. At verbs prior to target nouns, both groups showed a positivity-ERP effect (Strong vs. Weak) associated with the predictability of incoming nouns; this correlation effect was stronger in musicians than in nonmusicians. After the target nouns appeared, both groups showed an N400 reduction effect (Strong vs. Weak) associated with noun predictability, but musicians exhibited an earlier onset latency and stronger effect size of this correlation effect than nonmusicians. To determine whether musical expertise enhances anticipatory semantic processing in general, the same group of participants participated in a control reading comprehension experiment. The results showed that, compared with nonmusicians, musicians demonstrated more delayed ERP correlation effects of noun predictability at words preceding the target nouns; musicians also exhibited more delayed and reduced N400 decrease effects correlated with noun predictability at the target nouns. Taken together, these results suggest that musical expertise enhances lexical-semantic predictive processing in speech-in-noise comprehension. This musical-expertise effect may be related to the strengthened hierarchical speech processing in particular.

Do developmental dyslexia and congenital amusia share underlying impairments?

Developmental dyslexia and congenital amusia have common characteristics. Yet, their possible association in some individuals has been addressed only scarcely. Recently, two converging studies reported a sizable comorbidity rate between these two neurodevelopmental disorders (Couvignou et al., Cognitive Neuropsychology 2019; Couvignou & Kolinsky, Neuropsychologia 2021). However, the reason for their association remains unclear. Here, we investigate the hypothesis of shared underlying impairments between dyslexia and amusia. Fifteen dyslexic children with amusia (DYS+A), 15 dyslexic children without amusia (DYS-A), and two groups of 25 typically developing children matched on either chronological age (CA) or reading level (RL) were assessed with a behavioral battery aiming to investigate phonological and pitch processing capacities at auditory memory, perceptual awareness, and attentional levels. Overall, our results suggest that poor auditory serial-order memory increases susceptibility to comorbidity between dyslexia and amusia and may play a role in the development of the comorbid phenotype. In contrast, the impairments observed in the DYS+A children for auditory item memory, perceptual awareness, and attention might be a consequence of their reduced reading experience combined with weaker musical skills. Comparing DYS+A and DYS-A children suggests that the latter are more resourceful and/or have more effective compensatory strategies, or that their phenotype results from a different developmental trajectory. We will discuss the relevance of these findings for delving into the etiology of these two developmental disorders and address their implications for future research and practice.

Music Therapy Increases Social and Emotional Well-Being in Persons With Dementia: A Randomized Clinical Crossover Trial Comparing Singing to Verbal Discussion

The number of people living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) is growing proportional to our aging population. Although music-based interventions may offer meaningful support to these individuals, most music therapy research lacks well-matched comparison conditions and specific intervention focus, which limits evaluation of intervention effectiveness and possible mechanisms. Here, we report a randomized clinical crossover trial in which we examined the impact of a singing-based music therapy intervention on feelings, emotions, and social engagement in 32 care facility residents with ADRD (aged 65-97 years), relative to an analogous nonmusic condition (verbal discussion). Both conditions were informed by the Clinical Practice Model for Persons with Dementia and occurred in a small group format, three times per week for two weeks (six 25-minute sessions), with a two-week washout at crossover. We followed National Institutes of Health Behavior Change Consortium strategies to enhance methodological rigor. We predicted that music therapy would improve feelings, positive emotions, and social engagement, significantly more so than the comparison condition. We used a linear mixed model approach to analysis. In support of our hypotheses, the music therapy intervention yielded significant positive effects on feelings, emotions, and social engagement, particularly for those with moderate dementia. Our study contributes empirical support for the use of music therapy to improve psychosocial well-being in this population. Results also highlight the importance of considering patient characteristics in intervention design and offer practical implications for music selection and implementation within interventions for persons with ADRD.

Short- and long-term experience-dependent neuroplasticity interact during the perceptual learning of concurrent speech

Plasticity from auditory experiences shapes brain encoding and perception of sound. However, whether such long-term plasticity alters the trajectory of short-term plasticity during speech processing has yet to be investigated. Here, we explored the neural mechanisms and interplay between short- and long-term neuroplasticity for rapid auditory perceptual learning of concurrent speech sounds in young, normal-hearing musicians and nonmusicians. Participants learned to identify double-vowel mixtures during ∼45 minute training sessions recorded simultaneously with high-density EEG. We analyzed frequency-following responses (FFRs) and event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate neural correlates of learning at subcortical and cortical levels, respectively. While both groups showed rapid perceptual learning, musicians showed faster behavioral decisions than nonmusicians overall. Learning-related changes were not apparent in brainstem FFRs. However, plasticity was highly evident in cortex, where ERPs revealed unique hemispheric asymmetries between groups suggestive of different neural strategies (musicians: right hemisphere bias; nonmusicians: left hemisphere). Source reconstruction and the early (150-200 ms) time course of these effects localized learning-induced cortical plasticity to auditory-sensory brain areas. Our findings confirm domain-general benefits for musicianship but reveal successful speech sound learning is driven by a critical interplay between long- and short-term mechanisms of auditory plasticity that first emerge at a cortical level.

Does musicianship influence the perceptual integrality of tones and segmental information?

This study investigated the effect of musicianship on the perceptual integrality of tones and segmental information in non-native speech perception. We tested 112 Cantonese musicians, Cantonese non-musicians, English musicians, and English non-musicians with a modified Thai tone AX discrimination task. In the tone discrimination task, the control block only contained tonal variations, whereas the orthogonal block contained both tonal and task-irrelevant segmental variations. Relative to their own performance in the control block, the Cantonese listeners showed decreased sensitivity index (d') and increased response time in the orthogonal block, reflecting integral perception of tones and segmental information. By contrast, the English listeners performed similarly across the two blocks, indicating independent perception. Bayesian analysis revealed that the Cantonese musicians and the Cantonese non-musicians perceived Thai tones and segmental information equally integrally. Moreover, the English musicians and the English non-musicians showed similar degrees of independent perception. Based on the above results, musicianship does not seem to influence tone-segmental perceptual integrality. While musicianship apparently enhances tone sensitivity, not all musical advantages are transferrable to the language domain.

Music and musical elements in the treatment of childhood speech sound disorders: A systematic review of the literature

PURPOSE

Music-based interventions are used in the treatment of childhood speech sound disorders (SSDs). Hypotheses on working mechanisms are being developed, focussing on shared neural processes. However, evidence of the effect of treatment with musical elements in SSDs in children is lacking. This study reviews the literature regarding the use of music-based interventions in the treatment of childhood SSDs.

METHOD

A systematic search in six databases was conducted, yielding 199 articles, eight of which met the inclusion criteria. Included articles were reviewed on study characteristics, patient characteristics, interventions, outcomes and methodological quality.

RESULT

This review included four case studies, three single-subject design studies and one cohort study. Seven studies reported positive outcomes on speech production, but outcome measures in the four studies with experimental design were not all aimed at the level of speech (motor) processes. Methodological quality was sufficient in one study.

CONCLUSION

Seven out of eight studies in this review report positive outcomes of music-based interventions in the treatment of SSDs. However, these outcomes are not sufficiently supported by evidence due to insufficient methodological quality. Suggestions for improving methodological quality in future research are presented.

Auditory Processing in Musicians, a Cross-Sectional Study, as a Basis for Auditory Training Optimization

Μusicians are reported to have enhanced auditory processing. This study aimed to assess auditory perception in Greek musicians with respect to their musical specialization and to compare their auditory processing with that of non-musicians. Auditory processing elements evaluated were speech recognition in babble, rhythmic advantage in speech recognition, short-term working memory, temporal resolution, and frequency discrimination threshold detection. All groups were of 12 participants. Three distinct experimental groups tested included western classical musicians, Byzantine chanters, and percussionists. The control group consisted of 12 non-musicians. The results revealed: (i) a rhythmic advantage for word recognition in noise for classical musicians (M = 12.42) compared to Byzantine musicians (M = 9.83), as well as for musicians compared to non-musicians (U = 120.50, p = 0.019), (ii) better frequency discrimination threshold of Byzantine musicians (M = 3.17, p = 0.002) compared to the other two musicians' group for the 2000 Hz region, (iii) statistically significant better working memory for musicians (U = 123.00, p = 0.025) compared to non-musicians. Musical training enhances elements of auditory processing and may be used as an additional rehabilitation approach during auditory training, focusing on specific types of music for specific auditory processing deficits.

Heritability of Childhood Music Engagement and Associations with Language and Executive Function: Insights from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study

Music engagement is a powerful, influential experience that often begins early in life. Music engagement is moderately heritable in adults (~ 41-69%), but fewer studies have examined genetic influences on childhood music engagement, including their association with language and executive functions. Here we explored genetic and environmental influences on music listening and instrument playing (including singing) in the baseline assessment of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study. Parents reported on their 9-10-year-old children's music experiences (N = 11,876 children; N = 1543 from twin pairs). Both music measures were explained primarily by shared environmental influences. Instrument exposure (but not frequency of instrument engagement) was associated with language skills (r = .27) and executive functions (r = .15-0.17), and these associations with instrument engagement were stronger than those for music listening, visual art, or soccer engagement. These findings highlight the role of shared environmental influences between early music experiences, language, and executive function, during a formative time in development.

Musical training alters neural processing of tones and vowels in classic Chinese poems

Long-term rigorous musical training promotes various aspects of spoken language processing. However, it is unclear whether musical training provides an advantage in recognizing segmental and suprasegmental information of spoken language. We used vowel and tone violations in spoken unfamiliar seven-character quatrains and a rhyming judgment task to investigate the effects of musical training on tone and vowel processing by recording ERPs. Compared with non-musicians, musicians were more accurate and responded faster to incorrect than correct tones. Musicians showed larger P2 components in their ERPs than non-musicians during both tone and vowel processing, revealing increased focused attention on sounds. Both groups showed enhanced N400 and LPC for incorrect vowels (vs. correct vowels) but non-musicians showed an additional P2 effect for vowel violations. Moreover, both groups showed enhanced LPC for incorrect tones (vs. correct tones) but only non-musicians showed an additional N400 effect for tone violations. These results indicate that vowel/tone processing is less effortful for musicians (vs. non-musicians). Our study suggests that long-term musical training facilitates speech tone and vowel processing in a tonal language environment by increasing the attentional focus on speech and reducing demands for detecting incorrect vowels and integration costs for tone changes.

Differences in a Musician's Advantage for Speech-in-Speech Perception Based on Age and Task

PURPOSE

This study investigates the debate that musicians have an advantage in speech-in-noise perception from years of targeted auditory training. We also consider the effect of age on any such advantage, comparing musicians and nonmusicians (age range: 18-66 years), all of whom had normal hearing. We manipulate the degree of fundamental frequency (f _o) separation between the competing talkers, as well as use different tasks, to probe attentional differences that might shape a musician's advantage across ages.

METHOD

Participants (ranging in age from 18 to 66 years) included 29 musicians and 26 nonmusicians. They completed two tasks varying in attentional demands: (a) a selective attention task where listeners identify the target sentence presented with a one-talker interferer (Experiment 1), and (b) a divided attention task where listeners hear two vowels played simultaneously and identify both competing vowels (Experiment 2). In both paradigms, f _o separation was manipulated between the two voices (Δf _o = 0, 0.156, 0.306, 1, 2, 3 semitones).

RESULTS

Results show that increasing differences in f _o separation lead to higher accuracy on both tasks. Additionally, we find evidence for a musician's advantage across the two studies. In the sentence identification task, younger adult musicians show higher accuracy overall, as well as a stronger reliance on f _o separation. Yet, this advantage declines with musicians' age. In the double vowel identification task, musicians of all ages show an across-the-board advantage in detecting two vowels-and use f _o separation more to aid in stream separation-but show no consistent difference in double vowel identification.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, we find support for a hybrid auditory encoding-attention account of music-to-speech transfer. The musician's advantage includes f _o, but the benefit also depends on the attentional demands in the task and listeners' age. Taken together, this study suggests a complex relationship between age, musical experience, and speech-in-speech paradigm on a musician's advantage.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21956777.

Perception of Prosody in Hearing-Impaired Individuals and Users of Hearing Assistive Devices: An Overview of Recent Advances

PURPOSE

Prosody perception is an essential component of speech communication and social interaction through which both linguistic and emotional information are conveyed. Considering the importance of the auditory system in processing prosody-related acoustic features, the aim of this review article is to review the effects of hearing impairment on prosody perception in children and adults. It also assesses the performance of hearing assistive devices in restoring prosodic perception.

METHOD

Following a comprehensive online database search, two lines of inquiry were targeted. The first summarizes recent attempts toward determining the effects of hearing loss and interacting factors such as age and cognitive resources on prosody perception. The second analyzes studies reporting beneficial or detrimental impacts of hearing aids, cochlear implants, and bimodal stimulation on prosodic abilities in people with hearing loss.

RESULTS

The reviewed studies indicate that hearing-impaired individuals vary widely in perceiving affective and linguistic prosody, depending on factors such as hearing loss severity, chronological age, and cognitive status. In addition, most of the emerging information points to limitations of hearing assistive devices in processing and transmitting the acoustic features of prosody.

CONCLUSIONS

The existing literature is incomplete in several respects, including the lack of a consensus on how and to what extent hearing prostheses affect prosody perception, especially the linguistic function of prosody, and a gap in assessing prosody under challenging listening situations such as noise. This review article proposes directions that future research could follow to provide a better understanding of prosody processing in those with hearing impairment, which may help health care professionals and designers of assistive technology to develop innovative diagnostic and rehabilitation tools.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21809772.

What a difference a syllable makes-Rhythmic reading of poetry

In reading conventional poems aloud, the rhythmic experience is coupled with the projection of meter, enabling the prediction of subsequent input. However, it is unclear how top-down and bottom-up processes interact. If the rhythmicity in reading loud is governed by the top-down prediction of metric patterns of weak and strong stress, these should be projected also onto a randomly included, lexically meaningless syllable. If bottom-up information such as the phonetic quality of consecutive syllables plays a functional role in establishing a structured rhythm, the occurrence of the lexically meaningless syllable should affect reading and the number of these syllables in a metrical line should modulate this effect. To investigate this, we manipulated poems by replacing regular syllables at random positions with the syllable "tack". Participants were instructed to read the poems aloud and their voice was recorded during the reading. At the syllable level, we calculated the syllable onset interval (SOI) as a measure of articulation duration, as well as the mean syllable intensity. Both measures were supposed to operationalize how strongly a syllable was stressed. Results show that the average articulation duration of metrically strong regular syllables was longer than for weak syllables. This effect disappeared for "tacks". Syllable intensities, on the other hand, captured metrical stress of "tacks" as well, but only for musically active participants. Additionally, we calculated the normalized pairwise variability index (nPVI) for each line as an indicator for rhythmic contrast, i.e., the alternation between long and short, as well as louder and quieter syllables, to estimate the influence of "tacks" on reading rhythm. For SOI the nPVI revealed a clear negative effect: When "tacks" occurred, lines appeared to be read less altering, and this effect was proportional to the number of tacks per line. For intensity, however, the nPVI did not capture significant effects. Results suggests that top-down prediction does not always suffice to maintain a rhythmic gestalt across a series of syllables that carry little bottom-up prosodic information. Instead, the constant integration of sufficiently varying bottom-up information appears necessary to maintain a stable metrical pattern prediction.

Music Engagement as a Source of Cognitive Reserve

Music engagement is a ubiquitous activity that is thought to have cognitive benefits for the rapidly aging population. In the absence of robust treatment approaches for many age-related and neuropathological health issues, interest has emerged surrounding lifestyle-enriching activities, like exercise and music engagement, to build cognitive reserve across the lifespan and preserve neurocognitive function in older adults. The present review evaluates evidence of neurocognitive preservation arising from lifelong music engagement with respect to the cognitive reserve hypothesis. We collated a body of neuroimaging, behavioral and epidemiological evidence to adjudicate the benefits of music engagement for cognitive reserve. The findings suggest that music engagement should be considered in tandem with other well-established cognitive reserve proxies as a contributor to differential clinical outcomes in older populations at risk of age-related and neuropathological cognitive decline.

Development of the Musi-CI Training, A Musical Listening Training for Cochlear Implant Users: A Participatory Action Research Approach

A cochlear implant (CI) is a prosthesis that allows people with severe to profound hearing loss to understand speech in quiet settings. However, listening to music presents a challenge to most CI users; they often do not enjoy music or avoid it altogether. The Musi-CI training course was developed for CI users with the goal of reducing music aversion and improving music enjoyment. A consortium was established consisting of a professional musician with CI, CI rehabilitation professionals and researchers. Participatory action research (PAR) was applied to develop and evaluate the training experiences, collaborating with 37 CI users during three cycles of eight training sessions, each held over a period of 3 months. Input and feedback were collected after each training session using questionnaires, observations and focus group interviews. Almost all participants (86%) completed the training. After completing the training a large majority of participants reported increased music appreciation, increased social participation in musical settings and a positive impact on general auditory perception. The resulting Musi-CI training programme focuses on music listening skills, self-efficacy, and self-motivation. It consists of exercises intended to strengthen attention and working memory, to improve beat and rhythm perception (with online rhythm exercises) and exercises to distinguish timbre of instruments and emotion in music. A Melody Game was developed to improve pitch and melodic contour discrimination.

Singing ability is related to vocal emotion recognition: Evidence for shared sensorimotor processing across speech and music

The ability to recognize emotion in speech is a critical skill for social communication. Motivated by previous work that has shown that vocal emotion recognition accuracy varies by musical ability, the current study addressed this relationship using a behavioral measure of musical ability (i.e., singing) that relies on the same effector system used for vocal prosody production. In the current study, participants completed a musical production task that involved singing four-note novel melodies. To measure pitch perception, we used a simple pitch discrimination task in which participants indicated whether a target pitch was higher or lower than a comparison pitch. We also used self-report measures to address language and musical background. We report that singing ability, but not self-reported musical experience nor pitch discrimination ability, was a unique predictor of vocal emotion recognition accuracy. These results support a relationship between processes involved in vocal production and vocal perception, and suggest that sensorimotor processing of the vocal system is recruited for processing vocal prosody.

The Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment (MAPLE) Framework for Understanding Musicality-Language Links Across the Lifespan

Using individual differences approaches, a growing body of literature finds positive associations between musicality and language-related abilities, complementing prior findings of links between musical training and language skills. Despite these associations, musicality has been often overlooked in mainstream models of individual differences in language acquisition and development. To better understand the biological basis of these individual differences, we propose the Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment (MAPLE) framework. This novel integrative framework posits that musical and language-related abilities likely share some common genetic architecture (i.e., genetic pleiotropy) in addition to some degree of overlapping neural endophenotypes, and genetic influences on musically and linguistically enriched environments. Drawing upon recent advances in genomic methodologies for unraveling pleiotropy, we outline testable predictions for future research on language development and how its underlying neurobiological substrates may be supported by genetic pleiotropy with musicality. In support of the MAPLE framework, we review and discuss findings from over seventy behavioral and neural studies, highlighting that musicality is robustly associated with individual differences in a range of speech-language skills required for communication and development. These include speech perception-in-noise, prosodic perception, morphosyntactic skills, phonological skills, reading skills, and aspects of second/foreign language learning. Overall, the current work provides a clear agenda and framework for studying musicality-language links using individual differences approaches, with an emphasis on leveraging advances in the genomics of complex musicality and language traits.

Prosodic Transfer in English Literacy Skills among Chinese Elementary-Age Students: Controlling for Non-Verbal Intelligence

Building upon the prosodic transfer hypothesis, the current study aims to examine the intermediary effect of English stress on the relation between Chinese lexical tone awareness and English word-level literacy (reading and spelling) as well as the moderating effect of English oral vocabulary proficiency on the cross-linguistic association. Grade 4 Chinese learners of English (N = 224) participated in this study and were assessed for their tone and stress sensitivity, English oral vocabulary, English word reading, and English word spelling. Mediated multivariate analyses with moderation were used to explore: (1) whether the influence of lexical tone perception on L2 word reading and spelling was mediated by English stress as posited in the prosodic transfer hypothesis; (2) whether the effects of tone on English word reading and spelling performance varied as a function of oral vocabulary levels. The findings revealed a direct positive relationship between Chinese tone and English word reading and spelling, and the relationship was mediated by English stress awareness. Furthermore, the direct pathway from tone to English word-level literacy skills were moderated by oral vocabulary and the relationship between tone and English word-level skills became stronger as oral vocabulary levels increased; however, such strength reached a plateau among children without adequate oral vocabulary skills. These findings suggest the necessity to incorporate word spelling as an outcome in the cross-suprasegmental phonological transfer models of early literacy development. Additionally, the current study endorses the complexity of cross-language prosodic transfer. It points to a precise threshold for sufficient L2 oral vocabulary skills to enable tone transfer in English word-level literacy attainment.

Musical Training Enhances Categorical Perception of Speech in Preschoolers: Training Duration and Musical Program Matter

PURPOSE

Previous research has indicated the beneficial effects of musical training on speech perception in children. However, little has been known about whether musical training exerts transfer effects on fine-grained perception of linguistic pitch and time information. This study aimed to investigate the effects of different musical training programs and training duration on preschoolers' categorical perception (CP) of lexical tones and voice onset time (VOT) in Mandarin Chinese, which utilize pitch and time changes, respectively, to convey phonemic contrasts.

METHOD

Sixty-one Mandarin-speaking children aged 4 years were randomly assigned to pitch-based musical training (carillon group), rhythm-based musical training (drum group), or handcraft learning (control group). Children completed the tests designed to assess their musical abilities, CP of lexical tones and VOT, IQ, and working memory at three time-points. Repeated-measures analyses of variance were conducted to evaluate the training-related effects in various tasks. Correlation analyses were used to infer the relationships between musical abilities and CP performance of speech.

RESULTS

The carillon group demonstrated advantages over the drum and control groups in music pitch processing and CP of lexical tones; besides, the drum group performed better in the music time processing and CP of VOT than the control group. Moreover, positive correlations were found between musical gains and improvements on CP of speech.

CONCLUSIONS

These results provide evidence that transfer effects occur in CP of lexical tones and VOT in preschoolers. Our findings highlight the selectivity of musical advantages driven by different components of training programs and suggest that long-term musical training could be a means of early speech rehabilitation in children with communication disorders.

Enhanced salience of musical sounds in singers and instrumentalists

Music training has been linked to facilitated processing of emotional sounds. However, most studies have focused on speech, and less is known about musicians' brain responses to other emotional sounds and in relation to instrument-specific experience. The current study combined behavioral and EEG methods to address two novel questions related to the perception of auditory emotional cues: whether and how long-term music training relates to a distinct emotional processing of nonverbal vocalizations and music; and whether distinct training profiles (vocal vs. instrumental) modulate brain responses to emotional sounds from early to late processing stages. Fifty-eight participants completed an EEG implicit emotional processing task, in which musical and vocal sounds differing in valence were presented as nontarget stimuli. After this task, participants explicitly evaluated the same sounds regarding the emotion being expressed, their valence, and arousal. Compared with nonmusicians, musicians displayed enhanced salience detection (P2), attention orienting (P3), and elaborative processing (Late Positive Potential) of musical (vs. vocal) sounds in event-related potential (ERP) data. The explicit evaluation of musical sounds also was distinct in musicians: accuracy in the emotional recognition of musical sounds was similar across valence types in musicians, who also judged musical sounds to be more pleasant and more arousing than nonmusicians. Specific profiles of music training (singers vs. instrumentalists) did not relate to differences in the processing of vocal vs. musical sounds. Together, these findings reveal that music has a privileged status in the auditory system of long-term musically trained listeners, irrespective of their instrument-specific experience.

Adapted melodic intonation therapy can help raise trans women's singing and speaking fundamental frequencies

AIM

Voice interventions for transgender individuals can address several speech and voice parameters - fundamental frequency, resonance, intonation, rhythm, and intensity. In this study, we focus on fundamental voice frequency and build on existing research to test one technique that has been shown in a preliminary study to effectively adjust fundamental voice frequency in line with clients' goals.

METHOD

More specifically, we employed an adaptation of melodic intonation therapy (MIT) to assess whether it can raise trans women's average fundamental frequency to a significant degree. Eleven trans women participated in two one-to-one therapy sessions, four weeks apart.

RESULTS

Results pointed to a statistically significant rise in both their singing and speaking fundamental frequencies following the adapted MIT therapy sessions. Participants were also successful in imitating upward fundamental frequency contours when singing and in producing them independently in the speech modality.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Longitudinal studies are warranted to determine whether the observed positive results translate into long-term benefits.

Does music training enhance auditory and linguistic processing? A systematic review and meta-analysis of behavioral and brain evidence

It is often claimed that music training improves auditory and linguistic skills. Results of individual studies are mixed, however, and most evidence is correlational, precluding inferences of causation. Here, we evaluated data from 62 longitudinal studies that examined whether music training programs affect behavioral and brain measures of auditory and linguistic processing (N = 3928). For the behavioral data, a multivariate meta-analysis revealed a small positive effect of music training on both auditory and linguistic measures, regardless of the type of assignment (random vs. non-random), training (instrumental vs. non-instrumental), and control group (active vs. passive). The trim-and-fill method provided suggestive evidence of publication bias, but meta-regression methods (PET-PEESE) did not. For the brain data, a narrative synthesis also documented benefits of music training, namely for measures of auditory processing and for measures of speech and prosody processing. Thus, the available literature provides evidence that music training produces small neurobehavioral enhancements in auditory and linguistic processing, although future studies are needed to confirm that such enhancements are not due to publication bias.

Towards a Native OPERA Hypothesis: Musicianship and English Stress Perception

Musical experience facilitates speech perception. French musicians, to whom stress is foreign, have been found to perceive English stress more accurately than French non-musicians. This study investigated whether this musical advantage also applies to native listeners. English musicians and non-musicians completed an English stress discrimination task and two control tasks. With age, non-verbal intelligence and short-term memory controlled, the musicians exhibited a perceptual advantage relative to the non-musicians. This perceptual advantage was equally potent to both trochaic and iambic stress patterns. In terms of perceptual strategy, the two groups showed differential use of acoustic cues for iambic but not trochaic stress. Collectively, the results could be taken to suggest that musical experience enhances stress discrimination even among native listeners. Remarkably, this musical advantage is highly consistent and does not particularly favour either stress pattern. For iambic stress, the musical advantage appears to stem from the differential use of acoustic cues by musicians. For trochaic stress, the musical advantage may be rooted in enhanced durational sensitivity.

Language experience during the sensitive period narrows infants' sensory encoding of lexical tones-Music intervention reverses it

The sensitive period for phonetic learning (6∼12 months), evidenced by improved native speech processing and declined non-native speech processing, represents an early milestone in language acquisition. We examined the extent that sensory encoding of speech is altered by experience during this period by testing two hypotheses: (1) early sensory encoding of non-native speech declines as infants gain native-language experience, and (2) music intervention reverses this decline. We longitudinally measured the frequency-following response (FFR), a robust indicator of early sensory encoding along the auditory pathway, to a Mandarin lexical tone in 7- and 11-months-old monolingual English-learning infants. Infants received either no intervention (language-experience group) or music intervention (music-intervention group) randomly between FFR recordings. The language-experience group exhibited the expected decline in FFR pitch-tracking accuracy to the Mandarin tone, while the music-intervention group did not. Our results support both hypotheses and demonstrate that both language and music experiences alter infants' speech encoding.

Involvement of the intrinsic functional network of the red nucleus in complex behavioral processing

Previous studies suggested the possibility that the red nucleus (RN) is involved in other cognitive functions than motion per se, even though such functions have yet to be clarified. We investigated the activation of RN during several tasks and its intrinsic functional network associated with social cognition and musical practice. The tasks included finger tapping, n-back, and memory recall tasks. Region of interest for RN was identified through those tasks, anatomical information of RN, and a brain atlas. The intrinsic functional network was identified for RN by an analysis of connectivity between RN and other regions typically involved in seven known resting state functional networks with RN used as the seed region. Association of the RN network with a psychological trait of the interpersonal reactivity index and musical training years revealed subnetworks that included empathy related regions or music practice related regions. These social or highly coordinated motor activity represent the most complex functions ever known to involve the RN, adding further evidence for the multifunctional roles of RN. These discoveries may lead to a new direction of investigations to clarify probable novel roles for RN in high-level human behavior.

Where words are powerless to express: Use of music in paediatric neurology

Music is an art form that strongly affects people and can elicit many different emotions at the same time, including happiness, anxiety, sadness, and even ecstasy. What is it about music that causes such a strong reaction from each of us? Music engages many senses, which in turn can produce a multiplicity of responses and help create more extensive neuronal connections, as well as influence behaviour through structural and functional changes in the brain. Music-based interventions as a therapeutic tool in rehabilitation are becoming more common. It is said that the impact of music on the human body is positive. However, what impact does music have on the young nervous system, especially the affected one? This review presents the advantages and disadvantages of the use of music in paediatric neurology to treat dyslexia, cerebral palsy, and stroke, among others. Potential negative impacts such as musicogenic epilepsy and hallucinations will be discussed.

Inadequate pitch-difference sensitivity prevents half of all listeners from discriminating major vs minor tone sequences

Substantial evidence suggests that sensitivity to the difference between the major vs minor musical scales may be bimodally distributed. Much of this evidence comes from experiments using the "3-task." On each trial in the 3-task, the listener hears a rapid, random sequence of tones containing equal numbers of notes of either a G major or G minor triad and strives (with feedback) to judge which type of "tone-scramble" it was. This study asks whether the bimodal distribution in 3-task performance is due to variation (across listeners) in sensitivity to differences in pitch. On each trial in a "pitch-difference task," the listener hears two tones and judges whether the second tone is higher or lower than the first. When the first tone is roved (rather than fixed throughout the task), performance varies dramatically across listeners with median threshold approximately equal to a quarter-tone. Strikingly, nearly all listeners with thresholds higher than a quarter-tone performed near chance in the 3-task. Across listeners with thresholds below a quarter-tone, 3-task performance was uniformly distributed from chance to ceiling; thus, the large, lower mode of the distribution in 3-task performance is produced mainly by listeners with roved pitch-difference thresholds greater than a quarter-tone.

Musical and linguistic syntactic processing in agrammatic aphasia: An ERP study

Language and music rely on complex sequences organized according to syntactic principles that are implicitly understood by enculturated listeners. Across both domains, syntactic processing involves predicting and integrating incoming elements into higher-order structures. According to the Shared Syntactic Integration Resource Hypothesis (SSIRH; Patel, 2003), musical and linguistic syntactic processing rely on shared resources for integrating incoming elements (e.g., chords, words) into unfolding sequences. One prediction of the SSIRH is that people with agrammatic aphasia (whose deficits are due to syntactic integration problems) should present with deficits in processing musical syntax. We report the first neural study to test this prediction: event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured in response to musical and linguistic syntactic violations in a group of people with agrammatic aphasia (n=7) compared to a group of healthy controls (n=14) using an acceptability judgement task. The groups were matched with respect to age, education, and extent of musical training. Violations were based on morpho-syntactic relations in sentences and harmonic relations in chord sequences. Both groups presented with a significant P600 response to syntactic violations across both domains. The aphasic participants presented with a reduced-amplitude posterior P600 compared to the healthy adults in response to linguistic, but not musical, violations. Participants with aphasia did however present with larger frontal positivities in response to violations in both domains. Intriguingly, extent of musical training was associated with larger posterior P600 responses to syntactic violations of language and music in both groups. Overall, these findings are not consistent with the predictions of the SSIRH, and instead suggest that linguistic, but not musical, syntactic processing may be selectively impaired in stroke-induced agrammatic aphasia. However, the findings also suggest a relationship between musical training and linguistic syntactic processing, which may have clinical implications for people with aphasia, and motivates more research on the relationship between these two domains.

Speech-in-noise perception in musicians and non-musicians: A multi-level meta-analysis

Speech-in-noise perception, the ability to hear a relevant voice within a noisy background, is important for successful communication. Musicians have been reported to perform better than non-musicians on speech-in-noise tasks. This meta-analysis uses a multi-level design to assess the claim that musicians have superior speech-in-noise abilities compared to non-musicians. Across 31 studies and 62 effect sizes, the overall effect of musician status on speech-in-noise ability is significant, with a moderate effect size (g = 0.58), 95% CI [0.42, 0.74]. The overall effect of musician status was not moderated by within-study IQ equivalence, target stimulus, target contextual information, type of background noise, or age. We conclude that musicians show superior speech-in-noise abilities compared to non-musicians, not modified by age, IQ, or speech task parameters. These effects may reflect changes due to music training or predisposed auditory advantages that encourage musicianship.

A specific relationship between musical sophistication and auditory working memory

Previous studies have found conflicting results between individual measures related to music and fundamental aspects of auditory perception and cognition. The results have been difficult to compare because of different musical measures being used and lack of uniformity in the auditory perceptual and cognitive measures. In this study we used a general construct of musicianship, musical sophistication, that can be applied to populations with widely different backgrounds. We investigated the relationship between musical sophistication and measures of perception and working memory for sound by using a task suitable to measure both. We related scores from the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index to performance on tests of perception and working memory for two acoustic features-frequency and amplitude modulation. The data show that musical sophistication scores are best related to working memory for frequency in an analysis that accounts for age and non-verbal intelligence. Musical sophistication was not significantly associated with working memory for amplitude modulation rate or with the perception of either acoustic feature. The work supports a specific association between musical sophistication and working memory for sound frequency.

A reversal of the song advantage in vocal pitch imitation

Previous experiments have documented an advantage for vocal pitch-matching when participants sing back a short melody, in contrast to when participants attempt to imitate the pitch contour of spoken English. These results appear to confirm recent claims that music involves greater precision of pitch than speech. A re-analysis of these data is reported here that focuses on imitation of pitch trajectories within sung notes or spoken syllables. When analyzed this way, the domain-based difference reverses and speech imitation exhibits an advantage relative to song imitation. These results suggest that domain-specific advantages in imitation vary as a function of timescale.

Individuals With Congenital Amusia Show Degraded Speech Perception but Preserved Statistical Learning for Tone Languages

PURPOSE

Individuals with congenital amusia exhibit degraded speech perception. This study examined whether adult Chinese Mandarin listeners with amusia were still able to extract the statistical regularities of Mandarin speech sounds, despite their degraded speech perception.

METHOD

Using the gating paradigm with monosyllabic syllable-tone words, we tested 19 Mandarin-speaking amusics and 19 musically intact controls. Listeners heard increasingly longer fragments of the acoustic signal across eight duration-blocked gates. The stimuli varied in syllable token frequency and syllable-tone co-occurrence probability. The correct syllable-tone word, correct syllable-only, correct tone-only, and correct syllable-incorrect tone responses were compared respectively between the two groups using mixed-effects models.

RESULTS

Amusics were less accurate than controls in terms of the correct word, correct syllable-only, and correct tone-only responses. Amusics, however, showed consistent patterns of top-down processing, as indicated by more accurate responses to high-frequency syllables, high-probability tones, and tone errors all in manners similar to those of the control listeners.

CONCLUSIONS

Amusics are able to learn syllable and tone statistical regularities from the language input. This extends previous work by showing that amusics can track phonological segment and pitch cues despite their degraded speech perception. The observed speech deficits in amusics are therefore not due to an abnormal statistical learning mechanism. These results support rehabilitation programs aimed at improving amusics' sensitivity to pitch.

Amateur singing benefits speech perception in aging under certain conditions of practice: behavioural and neurobiological mechanisms

Limited evidence has shown that practising musical activities in aging, such as choral singing, could lessen age-related speech perception in noise (SPiN) difficulties. However, the robustness and underlying mechanism of action of this phenomenon remain unclear. In this study, we used surface-based morphometry combined with a moderated mediation analytic approach to examine whether singing-related plasticity in auditory and dorsal speech stream regions is associated with better SPiN capabilities. 36 choral singers and 36 non-singers aged 20-87 years underwent cognitive, auditory, and SPiN assessments. Our results provide important new insights into experience-dependent plasticity by revealing that, under certain conditions of practice, amateur choral singing is associated with age-dependent structural plasticity within auditory and dorsal speech regions, which is associated with better SPiN performance in aging. Specifically, the conditions of practice that were associated with benefits on SPiN included frequent weekly practice at home, several hours of weekly group singing practice, singing in multiple languages, and having received formal singing training. These results suggest that amateur choral singing is associated with improved SPiN through a dual mechanism involving auditory processing and auditory-motor integration and may be dose dependent, with more intense singing associated with greater benefit. Our results, thus, reveal that the relationship between singing practice and SPiN is complex, and underscore the importance of considering singing practice behaviours in understanding the effects of musical activities on the brain-behaviour relationship.

Impact of Early Rhythmic Training on Language Acquisition and Electrophysiological Functioning Underlying Auditory Processing: Feasibility and Preliminary Findings in Typically Developing Infants

Previous evidence has shown that early auditory processing impacts later linguistic development, and targeted training implemented at early ages can enhance auditory processing skills, with better expected language development outcomes. This study focuses on typically developing infants and aims to test the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of music training based on active synchronization with complex musical rhythms on the linguistic outcomes and electrophysiological functioning underlying auditory processing. Fifteen infants participated in the training (RTr+) and were compared with two groups of infants not attending any structured activities during the same time frame (RTr−, N = 14). At pre- and post-training, expressive and receptive language skills were assessed using standardized tests, and auditory processing skills were characterized through an electrophysiological non-speech multi-feature paradigm. Results reveal that RTr+ infants showed significantly broader improvement in both expressive and receptive pre-language skills. Moreover, at post-training, they presented an electrophysiological pattern characterized by shorter latency of two peaks (N2* and P2), reflecting a neural change detection process: these shifts in latency go beyond those seen due to maturation alone. These results provide preliminary evidence on the efficacy of our training in improving early linguistic competences, and in modifying the neural underpinnings of auditory processing in infants.

Categorical Perception of Mandarin Pitch Directions by Cantonese-Speaking Musicians and Non-musicians

Purpose: This study is to investigate whether Cantonese-speaking musicians may show stronger CP than Cantonese-speaking non-musicians in perceiving pitch directions generated based on Mandarin tones. It also aims to examine whether musicians may be more effective in processing stimuli and more sensitive to subtle differences caused by vowel quality.

Methods: Cantonese-speaking musicians and non-musicians performed a categorical identification and a discrimination task on rising and falling continua of fundamental frequency generated based on Mandarin level, rising and falling tones on two vowels with nine duration values.

Results: Cantonese-speaking musicians exhibited a stronger categorical perception (CP) of pitch contours than non-musicians based on the identification and discrimination tasks. Compared to non-musicians, musicians were also more sensitive to the change of stimulus duration and to the intrinsic F₀ in pitch perception in pitch processing.

Conclusion: The CP was strengthened due to musical experience and musicians benefited more from increased stimulus duration and were more efficient in pitch processing. Musicians might be able to better use the extra time to form an auditory representation with more acoustic details. Even with more efficiency in pitch processing, musicians' ability to detect subtle pitch changes caused by intrinsic F₀ was not undermined, which is likely due to their superior ability to process temporal information. These results thus suggest musicians may have a great advantage in learning tones of a second language.

Vocal learning as a preadaptation for the evolution of human beat perception and synchronization

The human capacity to synchronize movements to an auditory beat is central to musical behaviour and to debates over the evolution of human musicality. Have humans evolved any neural specializations for music processing, or does music rely entirely on brain circuits that evolved for other reasons? The vocal learning and rhythmic synchronization hypothesis proposes that our ability to move in time with an auditory beat in a precise, predictive and tempo-flexible manner originated in the neural circuitry for complex vocal learning. In the 15 years, since the hypothesis was proposed a variety of studies have supported it. However, one study has provided a significant challenge to the hypothesis. Furthermore, it is increasingly clear that vocal learning is not a binary trait animals have or lack, but varies more continuously across species. In the light of these developments and of recent progress in the neurobiology of beat processing and of vocal learning, the current paper revises the vocal learning hypothesis. It argues that an advanced form of vocal learning acts as a preadaptation for sporadic beat perception and synchronization (BPS), providing intrinsic rewards for predicting the temporal structure of complex acoustic sequences. It further proposes that in humans, mechanisms of gene-culture coevolution transformed this preadaptation into a genuine neural adaptation for sustained BPS. The larger significance of this proposal is that it outlines a hypothesis of cognitive gene-culture coevolution which makes testable predictions for neuroscience, cross-species studies and genetics. This article is part of the theme issue 'Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology'.