Processing Syntactic Relations in Language and Music: An Event-Related Potential Study

In order to test the language-specificity of a known neural correlate of syntactic processing [the P600 event-related brain potential (ERP) component], this study directly compared ERPs elicited by syntactic incongruities in language and music. Using principles of phrase structure for language and p...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of cognitive neuroscience 1998-11, Vol.10 (6), p.717-733
Main Authors: Patel, Aniruddh D., Gibson, Edward, Ratner, Jennifer, Besson, Mireille, Holcomb, Phillip J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Auditory perception
Auditory Perception - physiology
Brain
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Dominance, Cerebral - physiology
Electroencephalography
Evoked Potentials, Auditory - physiology
Humans
Language
Music
Neurology
Testing
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In order to test the language-specificity of a known neural correlate of syntactic processing [the P600 event-related brain potential (ERP) component], this study directly compared ERPs elicited by syntactic incongruities in language and music. Using principles of phrase structure for language and principles of harmony and key-relatedness for music, sequences were constructed in which an element was either congruous, moderately incongruous, or highly incongruous with the preceding structural context. A within-subjects design using 15 musically educated adults revealed that linguistic and musical structural incongruities elicited positivities that were statistically indistinguishable in a specified latency range. In contrast, a music-specific ERP component was observed that showed antero-temporal right-hemisphere lateralization. The results argue against the language-specificity of the P600 and suggest that language and music can be studied in parallel to address questions of neural specificity in cognitive processing.
ISSN:0898-929X
1530-8898
DOI:10.1162/089892998563121