Syntactic processing in music and language: Effects of interrupting auditory streams with alternating timbres

International Journal of Psychophysiology : Official Journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology
Anna FiveashGenevieve McArthur

Abstract

Music and language both rely on the processing of spectral (pitch, timbre) and temporal (rhythm) information to create structure and meaning from incoming auditory streams. Behavioral results have shown that interrupting a melodic stream with unexpected changes in timbre leads to reduced syntactic processing. Such findings suggest that syntactic processing is conditional on successful streaming of incoming sequential information. The current study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether (1) the effect of alternating timbres on syntactic processing is reflected in a reduced brain response to syntactic violations, and (2) the phenomenon is similar for music and language. Participants listened to melodies and sentences with either one timbre (piano or one voice) or three timbres (piano, guitar, and vibraphone, or three different voices). Half the stimuli contained syntactic violations: an out-of-key note in the melodies, and a phrase-structure violation in the sentences. We found smaller ERPs to syntactic violations in music in the three-timbre compared to the one-timbre condition, reflected in a reduced early right anterior negativity (ERAN). A similar but non-significant pattern was observed for language stim...Continue Reading

Citations

Dec 19, 2018·Scientific Reports·Anna FiveashWilliam Forde Thompson
Jul 22, 2020·Psychological Research·Gennadiy GurariyAdam S Greenberg
Aug 29, 2021·Acta Psychologica·Peter A White
Jun 20, 2020·Journal of Experimental Child Psychology·Anna FiveashBarbara Tillmann

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