Language vs. music

I’d like to think a little about this, before starting to read.

Papers, books, talks:

• Music, Language and the Brain Patel, 2007 (Amazon link)
  • Review, review, review (the last one is behind a pay wall)

• Musical rhythm, linguistic rhythm, and human evolution, Patel, Musical Perception, 2006
• Bach Speaks: A Cortical “Language-Network” Serves the Processing of Music, Koelschb, Guntera, Cramona, Zysseta, Lohmanna, Friedericia, Neuroimage, 2002

“The aim of the present study was the investigation of neural correlates of music processing with fMRI. Chord sequences were presented to the participants, infrequently containing unexpected musical events. […] [T]he cortical network comprising all these structures has up to now been thought to be domain-specific for language processing. To what extent this network might also be activated by the processing of non-linguistic information has remained unknown. The present fMRI-data reveal that the human brain employs this neuronal network also for the processing of musical information”

• Talk of the Tone, Patel, Nature, 2008 (Essay/Opinion piece)

“To appreciate how our species makes sense of sound we must study the brain’s response to a wide
variety of music, languages and musical languages, urges Aniruddh D. Patel.”

• Language, Music, Syntax and the Brain, Patel, Nature, 2003

“This review focuses on syntax, using recent neuroimaging data and cognitive theory to propose a specific point of convergence between syntactic processing in language and music. This leads to testable predictions, including the prediction that that syntactic comprehension problems in Broca’s aphasia are not selective to language but influence music perception as well.” (Not surprising? –mkz)

• Music and the Mind, Patel, 2006 talk at UCSD (YouTube link)
• Music, Language and Meaning: brain signatures of semantic processing, Koelsch, Kasper, Sammler, Schulze, Gunter, Friederici, Nature Neuroscience, 2004

“Semantics is a key feature of language, but whether or not music can activate brain mechanisms related to the processing of semantic meaning is not known. […] Our results indicate that both music and language can prime the meaning of a word, and that music can, as language, determine physiological indices of semantic processing.”

• Brain organization for music processing, Peretz, Zattore, Annual Reviews of Psychology, 2005.

“Research on how the brain processes music is emerging as a rich and stimulating area of investigation of perception, memory, emotion, and performance. Results emanating from both lesion studies and neuroimaging techniques are reviewed and integrated for each of these musical functions. […] Unfortunately, due to scarcity of research on the macrostructure of music organization and on cultural differences, the musical material under focus is at the level of the musical phrase, as typically used in Western popular music.”

• The nature of music from a biological perspective, Peretz, Cognition, 2006
• The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music, Peretz, Zattore (editors), 2003 (Amazon link)

Places, people:

• BRAMS – International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (“jointly affiliated with the University of Montreal and McGill University”)
• Isabelle Peretz lab
• Isabelle Peretz
  • Publications (links to PDF files)
• Aniruddh D. Patel
  • Publications (links to PDF files)
• Stefan Koelsch

Related:

• Konnakol, bol, kuchi shōga
• Bird vocalization, whale song
• Intonation

Thanks to Emre Sevinc for the reference to the Peretz-Zattore book.

Stefan Koelsch^{b, a, 1}, Thomas C. Gunter^a, D. Yves v. Cramon^a, Stefan Zysset^a, Gabriele Lohmann^a and Angela D. Friederici^a