Dynamic hierarchical cognition: Music and language demand further types of abstracta

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tudor Popescu ◽  
W. Tecumseh Fitch
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Hierarchical Structures ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Building Capacity ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Tree Building

Abstract Hierarchical structures are rapidly and flexibly built up in the domains of human language and music. These domains require a tree-building capacity – “dendrophilia” – to dynamically infer hierarchical structures from sensory input (or to hierarchically structure output), based on subunits stored in a lexicon. This dynamic process involves a crucial class of abstracta overlooked in the target article.

scholarly journals The evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music: a bottom-up perspective

Primates ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rie Asano
Keyword(s):  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Hierarchical Control ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Building Capacity ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Structure Building ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Directed Action ◽  
Brain Architecture ◽  
The Brain

AbstractA central property of human language is its hierarchical structure. Humans can flexibly combine elements to build a hierarchical structure expressing rich semantics. A hierarchical structure is also considered as playing a key role in many other human cognitive domains. In music, auditory-motor events are combined into hierarchical pitch and/or rhythm structure expressing affect. How did such a hierarchical structure building capacity evolve? This paper investigates this question from a bottom-up perspective based on a set of action-related components as a shared basis underlying cognitive capacities of nonhuman primates and humans. Especially, I argue that the evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music is tractable for comparative evolutionary study once we focus on the gradual elaboration of shared brain architecture: the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits for hierarchical control of goal-directed action and the dorsal pathways for hierarchical internal models. I suggest that this gradual elaboration of the action-related brain architecture in the context of vocal control and tool-making went hand in hand with amplification of working memory, and made the brain ready for hierarchical structure building in language and music.

SPEECH INTONATION PERCEPTION DEFICITS IN MUSICAL TONE DEAFNESS (CONGENITAL AMUSIA)

2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 357-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANIRUDDH D. PATEL ◽  
MEREDITH WONG ◽  
JESSICA FOXTON ◽  
ALIETTE LOCHY ◽  
ISABELLE PERETZ
Keyword(s):  
Rate Of Change ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
French Canadian ◽  
Congenital Amusia ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Pitch Direction ◽  
Melody Perception ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Musical Tone ◽  
Important Evidence

TO WHAT EXTENT DO MUSIC and language share neural mechanisms for processing pitch patterns? Musical tone-deafness (amusia) provides important evidence on this question. Amusics have problems with musical melody perception, yet early work suggested that they had no problems with the perception of speech intonation (Ayotte, Peretz, & Hyde, 2002). However, here we show that about 30% of amusics from independent studies (British and French-Canadian) have difficulty discriminating a statement from a question on the basis of a final pitch fall or rise. This suggests that pitch direction perception deficits in amusia (known from previous psychophysical work) can extend to speech. For British amusics, the direction deficit is related to the rate of change of the final pitch glide in statements/ questions, with increased discrimination difficulty when rates are relatively slow. These findings suggest that amusia provides a useful window on the neural relations between melodic processing in language and music.

The Role of Musical Development in Early Language Acquisition

2018 ◽  
pp. 565-591
Author(s):  
Anthony Brandt ◽  
L. Robert Slevc ◽  
Molly Gebrian
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Developmental Disorders ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Infant Brain

Language and music are readily distinguished by adults, but there is growing evidence that infants first experience speech as a special type of music. By listening to the phonemic inventory and prosodic patterns of their caregivers’ speech, infants learn how their native language is composed, later bootstrapping referential meaning onto this musical framework. Our current understanding of infants’ sensitivities to the musical features of speech, the co-development of musical and linguistic abilities, and shared developmental disorders, supports the view that music and language are deeply entangled in the infant brain and modularity emerges over the course of development. This early entanglement of music and language is crucial to the cultural transmission of language and children’s ability to learn any of the world’s tongues.

scholarly journals Cerebral Dominance for Human Language and Music

2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-216
Author(s):  
Takuya Yasui ◽  
Kuniyoshi L. Sakai
Keyword(s):  
Cerebral Dominance ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Language And Music

The Effect of Familiarity on Neural Representations of Music and Language

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Avital Sternin ◽  
Lucy M. McGarry ◽  
Adrian M. Owen ◽  
Jessica A. Grahn
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Training Period ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Musical Memory ◽  
The Brain

Abstract We investigated how familiarity alters music and language processing in the brain. We used fMRI to measure brain responses before and after participants were familiarized with novel music and language stimuli. To manipulate the presence of language and music in the stimuli, there were four conditions: (1) whole music (music and words together), (2) instrumental music (no words), (3) a capella music (sung words, no instruments), and (4) spoken words. To manipulate participants' familiarity with the stimuli, we used novel stimuli and a familiarization paradigm designed to mimic “natural” exposure, while controlling for autobiographical memory confounds. Participants completed two fMRI scans that were separated by a stimulus training period. Behaviorally, participants learned the stimuli over the training period. However, there were no significant neural differences between the familiar and unfamiliar stimuli in either univariate or multivariate analyses. There were differences in neural activity in frontal and temporal regions based on the presence of language in the stimuli, and these differences replicated across the two scanning sessions. These results indicate that the way we engage with music is important for creating a memory of that music, and these aspects, over and above familiarity on its own, may be responsible for the robust nature of musical memory in the presence of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.

scholarly journals MUSIC AND LANGUAGE IN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTION

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 388
Author(s):  
Mirdza Paipare
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Music Therapy ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Scientific Basis ◽  
Speech And Language ◽  
Actual Problem ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Speech And Language Development

Nowadays speech and language development is actual problem. This research was conducted to find out how music could help in solving this problem and to find out how connected music and language processes are in our brain. Language and music share a lot of similarities in terms of neurology, Music Therapy, communication and psychology and their interactions are successfully used in these sciences. Aim of this research was to gather data and scientific basis for music’s ability to improve speech and language. Main findings indicate that this topic has been studied for decades and still hasn’t lost its significance. Music can influence language processes, lessen disorders because it is neurologically and psychologically close to our spoken language. 

Foundations of Musical Grammar

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Zbikowski
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Unique Contribution ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Social Dances ◽  
Musical Analyses

This volume makes a unique contribution to music theory by building on recent research in cognitive science and theoretical perspectives adopted from cognitive linguistics to present an account of the foundations of musical grammar. Musical grammar is conceived of as a species of construction grammar, in which grammatical elements are form-function pairs. In the case of music, basic constructions are sonic analogs for dynamic processes that are central to human cultures. This volume focuses on three such processes: those related to emotions, to gestures, and to dance. The first chapter introduces the volume and explains how this approach connects with previous work in music theory. The second chapter reviews research on analogy and shows how it provides a basis for analogical reference, which is fundamental to musical grammar. The third chapter describes the connection between music and the emotions facilitated by analogical reference. The fourth chapter explores connections between human gesture and musical utterances, and shows how both rely on the infrastructure for human communication that is also exploited by language. The fifth chapter demonstrates how music provides sonic analogs for the steps of social dances, and how music combined with dance has been used to structure social interactions. The sixth chapter focuses on the combination of language and music that occurs in songs, making clear how the different grammatical resources offered by music and language shape how meaning is constructed in songs. Detailed musical analyses are offered in each chapter, as well as summaries of the basic elements of musical grammar.

Music and Words

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Zbikowski
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Franz Schubert ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Carl Loewe ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Construct Meaning ◽  
The Way

This chapter focuses on the different ways language and music construct meaning as revealed through the medium of song. The chapter focuses on the German Lied of the early nineteenth century, and it offers analyses of three settings of Goethe’s lyric poem “Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh.” The first is an 1814 setting by Carl Friedrich Zelter; the second was written around 1816 by Carl Loewe; the third was completed sometime before 1824 by Franz Schubert. These analyses show how each setting changes the interpretation of Goethe’s poem, demonstrating how the different grammatical resources offered by music and language shape the way meaning is constructed in these songs.

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