1
|
Tervaniemi M, Putkinen V, Nie P, Wang C, Du B, Lu J, Li S, Cowley BU, Tammi T, Tao S. Improved Auditory Function Caused by Music Versus Foreign Language Training at School Age: Is There a Difference? Cereb Cortex 2021; 32:63-75. [PMID: 34265850 PMCID: PMC8634570 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab194] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2021] [Revised: 05/28/2021] [Accepted: 05/28/2021] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
In adults, music and speech share many neurocognitive functions, but how do they interact in a developing brain? We compared the effects of music and foreign language training on auditory neurocognition in Chinese children aged 8–11 years. We delivered group-based training programs in music and foreign language using a randomized controlled trial. A passive control group was also included. Before and after these year-long extracurricular programs, auditory event-related potentials were recorded (n = 123 and 85 before and after the program, respectively). Through these recordings, we probed early auditory predictive brain processes. To our surprise, the language program facilitated the children’s early auditory predictive brain processes significantly more than did the music program. This facilitation was most evident in pitch encoding when the experimental paradigm was musically relevant. When these processes were probed by a paradigm more focused on basic sound features, we found early predictive pitch encoding to be facilitated by music training. Thus, a foreign language program is able to foster auditory and music neurocognition, at least in tonal language speakers, in a manner comparable to that by a music program. Our results support the tight coupling of musical and linguistic brain functions also in the developing brain.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Mari Tervaniemi
- Cicero Learning, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.,Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.,Advanced Innovation Center for Future Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Vesa Putkinen
- Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.,Turku PET Centre, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
| | - Peixin Nie
- Cicero Learning, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.,Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Cuicui Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Bin Du
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Jing Lu
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Shuting Li
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Benjamin Ultan Cowley
- Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland.,Cognitive Science, Department of Digital Humanities, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki, Finland
| | - Tuisku Tammi
- Cognitive Science, Department of Digital Humanities, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki, Finland
| | - Sha Tao
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Dawson C, Tervaniemi M, Aalto D. Behavioral and subcortical signatures of musical expertise in Mandarin Chinese speakers. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0190793. [PMID: 29300756 PMCID: PMC5754139 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0190793] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2017] [Accepted: 12/20/2017] [Indexed: 02/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Both musical training and native language have been shown to have experience-based plastic effects on auditory processing. However, the combined effects within individuals are unclear. Recent research suggests that musical training and tone language speaking are not clearly additive in their effects on processing of auditory features and that there may be a disconnect between perceptual and neural signatures of auditory feature processing. The literature has only recently begun to investigate the effects of musical expertise on basic auditory processing for different linguistic groups. This work provides a profile of primary auditory feature discrimination for Mandarin speaking musicians and nonmusicians. The musicians showed enhanced perceptual discrimination for both frequency and duration as well as enhanced duration discrimination in a multifeature discrimination task, compared to nonmusicians. However, there were no differences between the groups in duration processing of nonspeech sounds at a subcortical level or in subcortical frequency representation of a nonnative tone contour, for fo or for the first or second formant region. The results indicate that musical expertise provides a cognitive, but not subcortical, advantage in a population of Mandarin speakers.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Caitlin Dawson
- Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
- * E-mail:
| | - Mari Tervaniemi
- CICERO Learning Network, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Daniel Aalto
- Communication Sciences and Disorders, Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
- Institute for Reconstructive Sciences in Medicine, Misericordia Community Hospital, Edmonton, Canada
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Skoe E, Burakiewicz E, Figueiredo M, Hardin M. Basic neural processing of sound in adults is influenced by bilingual experience. Neuroscience 2017; 349:278-290. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.02.049] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/11/2016] [Revised: 02/18/2017] [Accepted: 02/21/2017] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
|
4
|
Dawson C, Aalto D, Šimko J, Vainio M, Tervaniemi M. Musical Sophistication and the Effect of Complexity on Auditory Discrimination in Finnish Speakers. Front Neurosci 2017; 11:213. [PMID: 28450829 PMCID: PMC5390041 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2017.00213] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2017] [Accepted: 03/29/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Musical experiences and native language are both known to affect auditory processing. The present work aims to disentangle the influences of native language phonology and musicality on behavioral and subcortical sound feature processing in a population of musically diverse Finnish speakers as well as to investigate the specificity of enhancement from musical training. Finnish speakers are highly sensitive to duration cues since in Finnish, vowel and consonant duration determine word meaning. Using a correlational approach with a set of behavioral sound feature discrimination tasks, brainstem recordings, and a musical sophistication questionnaire, we find no evidence for an association between musical sophistication and more precise duration processing in Finnish speakers either in the auditory brainstem response or in behavioral tasks, but they do show an enhanced pitch discrimination compared to Finnish speakers with less musical experience and show greater duration modulation in a complex task. These results are consistent with a ceiling effect set for certain sound features which corresponds to the phonology of the native language, leaving an opportunity for music experience-based enhancement of sound features not explicitly encoded in the language (such as pitch, which is not explicitly encoded in Finnish). Finally, the pattern of duration modulation in more musically sophisticated Finnish speakers suggests integrated feature processing for greater efficiency in a real world musical situation. These results have implications for research into the specificity of plasticity in the auditory system as well as to the effects of interaction of specific language features with musical experiences.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Caitlin Dawson
- Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of HelsinkiHelsinki, Finland.,Phonetics and Speech Synthesis Research Group, University of HelsinkiHelsinki, Finland
| | - Daniel Aalto
- Institute for Reconstructive Sciences in Medicine, Misericordia Community Hospital, University of AlbertaEdmonton, AB, Canada
| | - Juraj Šimko
- Phonetics and Speech Synthesis Research Group, University of HelsinkiHelsinki, Finland
| | - Martti Vainio
- Phonetics and Speech Synthesis Research Group, University of HelsinkiHelsinki, Finland
| | - Mari Tervaniemi
- Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of HelsinkiHelsinki, Finland.,Cicero Learning, University of HelsinkiHelsinki, Finland
| |
Collapse
|