Varley, Rosemary;
Chen, Xuanyi;
Affourtit, Josef;
Ryskin, Rachel;
Regev, Tamar;
Norman-Haignere, Samuel;
Jouravlev, Olessia;
... Fedorenko, Evelina; + view all
(2023)
The human language system, including its inferior frontal component in “Broca’s area,” does not support music perception.
Cerebral Cortex
, 33
(12)
pp. 7904-7929.
10.1093/cercor/bhad087.
Preview |
Text
Varley_Chen et al. CerCor.pdf Download (2MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Language and music are two human-unique capacities whose relationship remains debated. Some have argued for overlap in processing mechanisms, especially for structure processing. Such claims often concern the inferior frontal component of the language system located within “Broca’s area.” However, others have failed to find overlap. Using a robust individual-subject fMRI approach, we examined the responses of language brain regions to music stimuli, and probed the musical abilities of individuals with severe aphasia. Across 4 experiments, we obtained a clear answer: music perception does not engage the language system, and judgments about music structure are possible even in the presence of severe damage to the language network. In particular, the language regions’ responses to music are generally low, often below the fixation baseline, and never exceed responses elicited by nonmusic auditory conditions, like animal sounds. Furthermore, the language regions are not sensitive to music structure: they show low responses to both intact and structure-scrambled music, and to melodies with vs. without structural violations. Finally, in line with past patient investigations, individuals with aphasia, who cannot judge sentence grammaticality, perform well on melody well-formedness judgments. Thus, the mechanisms that process structure in language do not appear to process music, including music syntax.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The human language system, including its inferior frontal component in “Broca’s area,” does not support music perception |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/cercor/bhad087 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhad087 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | language, music, syntactic processing, fMRI, domain specificity |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Language and Cognition |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10164075 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
