Neural Correlates of Processing Syntax in Music and ... - PubMan

11 Experiment III: Neural correlates of musical and linguis-
tic syntax processing in 9-year old children with or without
musical training
11.1 Introduction and Hypotheses
This experiment investigated the processing of musical and linguistic syntax in 9-year
old children. Up to now, the evidence on how these processes develop is relatively
sparse and only few studies investigated these issues with neurophysiological methods
(e.g., Hahne et al., 2004; Koelsch et al., 2003; for a more detailed overview, see the
chapter “Music Perception” and “Language Perception”). Thus, one aim of the present
experiment was to increase our knowledge about the development of the neural correlates
of the processing of syntax in music and language.
Another aim was to compare these neural correlates of syntax processing in children
that either were or were not musically trained. This aim builds upon evidence from a
number of previous studies. Firstly, there is mounting evidence that musical training
may lead to changes in the neural correlates of music perception. This neural plasticity
may take place on several levels of music perception (for a discussion, see the chapter
“Musical Training”). A study by Koelsch et al. (2002) that demonstrated an influence of
musical training on the brain correlates of music-syntactic processing. Secondly, a
strong relation of music and language is proposed by a number of researchers (e.g., S.
Brown et al., 2006; Koelsch & Siebel, 2005). Particularly, the musical aspects of language
are proposed to be important for its acquisition (e.g., Papoušek et al., 1992; for a
more detailed discussion, see the chapter “Music and Language”). Of specific importance
for this study is a strong overlap in the neural correlates of processing musical and
linguistic syntax (see the chapter “Music Perception”, “Language Perception”, and
“Music and Language”). Based on this evidence, it was hypothesized that musical training
may lead to changes in the processing of both musical and of linguistic syntax.
Therefore, this experiment evaluated two groups of children that either received musical
training or not. A within-subject comparison – involving two sessions in which the
neural responses to either a violation of musical or of linguistic syntax were measured –
was performed. It was expected that the neural correlates of syntactic processing should
be present in both groups. Since children with musical training have an increased
knowledge of music-syntactic regularities, it was further hypothesized that the neural
correlates to music-syntactic processing would have an enlarged amplitude in the musically-trained
children. Furthermore, since there is an overlap in the neural resources