Music and Language Expertise Influence the Categorization of Speech and Musical Sounds: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Measurements

Abstract

In this study, we used high-density EEG to evaluate whether speech and music expertise has an influence on the categorization of expertise-related and unrelated sounds. With this purpose in mind, we compared the categorization of speech, music, and neutral sounds between professional musicians, simultaneous interpreters (SIs), and controls in response to morphed speech-noise, music-noise, and speech-music continua. Our hypothesis was that music and language expertise will strengthen the memory representations of prototypical sounds, which act as a perceptual magnet for morphed variants. This means that the prototype would "attract" variants. This so-called magnet effect should be manifested by an increased assignment of morphed items to the trained category by a reduced maximal slope of the psychometric function as well as by differential event-related brain responses reflecting memory comparison processes (i.e., N400 and P600 responses). As a main result, we provide first evidence for a domain-specific behavioral bias of musicians and SIs toward the trained categories, namely music and speech. In addition, SIs showed a bias toward musical items, indicating that interpreting training has a generic influence on the cognitive representation of spectrotemporal signals with similar acoustic properties to speech sounds. Notably, EEG measurements revealed clear distinct N400 and P600 responses to both prototypical and ambiguous items between the three groups at anterior, central, and posterior scalp sites. These differential N400 and P600 responses represent synchronous activity occurring across widely distributed brain networks and indicate a dynamical recruitment of memory processes that vary as a function of training and expertise. Abstract ■ In this study, we used high-density EEG to evaluate whether speech and music expertise has an influence on the categorization of expertise-related and unrelated sounds. With this purpose in mind, we compared the categorization of speech, music, and neutral sounds between professional musicians, simultaneous interpreters (SIs), and controls in response to morphed speechnoise, music-noise, and speech-music continua. Our hypothesis was that music and language expertise will strengthen the memory representations of prototypical sounds, which act as a perceptual magnet for morphed variants. This means that the prototype would "attract" variants. This so-called magnet effect should be manifested by an increased assignment of morphed items to the trained category by a reduced maximal slope of the psychometric function as well as by differential event-related brain responses reflecting memory comparison processes (i.e., N400 and P600 responses). As a main result, we provide first evidence for a domain-specific behavioral bias of musicians and SIs toward the trained categories, namely music and speech. In addition, SIs showed a bias toward musical items, indicating that interpreting training has a generic influence on the cognitive representation of spectrotemporal signals w...

A core avenue for transcultural research on dementia: on the cross‐linguistic generalization of language‐related effects in Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease

“…Yet the bilingual experience seems to exert distinctive and far-reaching influences on cognition. For example, in addition to its differential effects on executive performance (Bialystok and DePape, 2009), the acquisition of expert bilingual skills seems to modulate processing of non-verbal information from other specific domains, such as musical items (Elmer et al, 2014).…”

Fast Brain Plasticity during Word Learning in Musically-Trained Children

“…Moreover, it has been shown that music training also enhances several aspects of language processing, including phoneme and syllable perception (Musacchia et al, 2007; Chobert et al, 2011, 2014; Marie et al, 2011; Elmer et al, 2012, 2014; Parbery-Clark et al, 2012; Kühnis et al, 2013; Bidelman et al, 2014), the processing of pitch and prosody (Schön et al, 2004; Thompson et al, 2004; Delogu et al, 2006; Magne et al, 2006; Marques et al, 2007; Wong et al, 2007; Lima and Castro, 2011; Bidelman et al, 2013), phonological processing and reading (Anvari et al, 2002; Moreno et al, 2009; Corrigall and Trainor, 2011; Huss et al, 2011), speech segmentation (François et al, 2013), and syntactic processing (Jentschke and Koelsch, 2009; Gordon et al, 2015). However, it remains an open question whether music training improves associative learning and semantic memory, two of the processes that are at the heart of word learning but that are not necessarily language-specific (Markson and Bloom, 1997).…”

Auditory Evoked Responses in Musicians during Passive Vowel Listening Are Modulated by Functional Connectivity between Bilateral Auditory-related Brain Regions

“…Such plastic changes can be found at the macroanatomical (Elmer, Hänggi, Meyer, & Jäncke, 2013;Bermudez, Lerch, Evans, & Zatorre, 2009;Schneider et al, 2005) as well as at the functional (Kühnis, Elmer, Meyer, & Jäncke, 2013b;Ellis et al, 2012;Elmer, Meyer, & Jäncke, 2012;Marie, Kujala, & Besson, 2012;Schneider et al, 2005) level and often correlate fairly well with the age of commencement of musical training (Pantev et al, 1998), the years of training (Musacchia, Sams, Skoe, & Kraus, 2007), or even with the cumulative hours of training (Elmer et al, 2012). Therefore, it is not really surprising that training-related changes in auditoryrelated brain regions of musicians strengthen the faculty to perceive or categorize musical sounds (Elmer, Klein, Kühnis, Liem, Meyer, & Jäncke, 2014;Meyer, Baumann, & Jäncke, 2006;Pantev, Roberts, Schulz, Engelien, & Ross, 2001) or even temporal and spectral (Kühnis, Elmer, Meyer, & Jäncke, 2013a;Kühnis et al, 2013b;Elmer et al, 2012;Marie et al, 2012;Marie, Delogu, Lampis, Belardinelli, & Besson, 2011;Marie, Magne, & Besson, 2011) speech information. However, from a methodological point of view, it is important to differentiate between active (i.e., discrimination or categorization) tasks and passive listening paradigms.…”