The music of speech: Music training facilitates pitch processing in both music and language

TLDR

The study aimed to test whether extensive musical training improves pitch contour processing in both music and language. The authors compared professional musicians and nonmusicians using a parametric manipulation of final notes’ or words’ fundamental frequency while recording behavioral responses and electrophysiological data to trace pitch processing over time. Musicians detected subtle F0 changes more accurately than nonmusicians, showed shorter onset latencies and distinct scalp distributions in both music and language tasks, supporting that extensive musical training enhances pitch contour perception in speech.

Abstract

Abstract The main aim of the present experiment was to determine whether extensive musical training facilitates pitch contour processing not only in music but also in language. We used a parametric manipulation of final notes' or words' fundamental frequency (F0), and we recorded behavioral and electrophysiological data to examine the precise time course of pitch processing. We compared professional musicians and nonmusicians. Results revealed that within both domains, musicians detected weak F0 manipulations better than nonmusicians. Moreover, F0 manipulations within both music and language elicited similar variations in brain electrical potentials, with overall shorter onset latency for musicians than for nonmusicians. Finally, the scalp distribution of an early negativity in the linguistic task varied with musical expertise, being largest over temporal sites bilaterally for musicians and largest centrally and over left temporal sites for nonmusicians. These results are taken as evidence that extensive musical training influences the perception of pitch contour in spoken language.