Musical expertise and foreign speech perception

The aim of this experiment was to investigate the influence of musical expertise on the automatic perception of foreign syllables and harmonic sounds. Participants were Cuban students with high level of expertise in music or in visual arts and with the same level of general education and socio-econo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in systems neuroscience 2013-01, Vol.7, p.84-84
Main Authors: Martínez-Montes, Eduardo, Hernández-Pérez, Heivet, Chobert, Julie, Morgado-Rodríguez, Lisbet, Suárez-Murias, Carlos, Valdés-Sosa, Pedro A, Besson, Mireille
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Auditory Perception
Cognitive science
duration
musicians
Neuroscience
pitch
Speech Perception
syllables
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Summary:The aim of this experiment was to investigate the influence of musical expertise on the automatic perception of foreign syllables and harmonic sounds. Participants were Cuban students with high level of expertise in music or in visual arts and with the same level of general education and socio-economic background. We used a multi-feature Mismatch Negativity (MMN) design with sequences of either syllables in Mandarin Chinese or harmonic sounds, both comprising deviants in pitch contour, duration and Voice Onset Time (VOT) or equivalent that were either far from (Large deviants) or close to (Small deviants) the standard. For both Mandarin syllables and harmonic sounds, results were clear-cut in showing larger MMNs to pitch contour deviants in musicians than in visual artists. Results were less clear for duration and VOT deviants, possibly because of the specific characteristics of the stimuli. Results are interpreted as reflecting similar processing of pitch contour in speech and non-speech sounds. The implications of these results for understanding the influence of intense musical training from childhood to adulthood and of genetic predispositions for music on foreign language perception are discussed.
ISSN:1662-5137
1662-5137
DOI:10.3389/fnsys.2013.00084