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

General Discussion 160
and Leonard, 1998 for a review). Thus, we investigated, whether these deficiencies
could also be found for the processing of musical syntax. EEG measurements were
recorded while the participants listened to chord sequences that ended either regularly
(on a tonic) or irregularly (on a supertonic). Further, behavioural tests (a language development
test, tests on musical abilities, and a non-verbal intelligence test) were performed
to enable a more detailed description of the participants’ characteristics. The
main finding was that an ERAN and an N5 could be demonstrated in children with
TLD. In contrast, neither of these ERP components was observed in the group of children
with SLI. However, these differences between the two groups were, most presumably,
not due to problems in basic auditory processing mechanisms in the children
with SLI: Both groups did not differ in their ERP response to the onset of the chord
sequence. Instead, the group difference was rather due to the deficient processing of
syntax for both, music and language, in the children with SLI. Other findings from the
same experiment add further weight on this assumption: [1] The ERAN amplitude was
correlated with the subtests of the language development test. [2] The considerable
difference in the ERP responses to a violation of musical syntax between the two groups
of participants allowed classifying a large number of participants (77.1 %) according to
their ERAN amplitude size in a linear discriminant analysis. Taken together, the results
from Experiment II strengthen the view that the shared neural correlates of processing
syntax in music and language may lead to a considerable interaction of these processes.
This assumption will be more thoroughly discussed below (see 14.3).
In Experiment III the processing of musical and linguistic syntax was compared in 9year
old children that either received musical training (MT; N = 19) or did not (NM; N
= 13). In these children, the ERP responses to a violation of musical syntax were acquired
in one experimental session, and the ERP responses to a violation of linguistic
syntax in another session. The stimuli of the music experiment were the same as in
Experiment II. The stimuli of the language experiment were sentences with passive
mode construction that ended either syntactically correct or incorrect. These sentences
were used in a large number of earlier studies with adults (e.g, Friederici et al., 1993)
and children (e.g., Hahne et al., 2004).
The main finding was an enlarged ERAN amplitude in the children with MT compared
to the NM group. This finding is in accordance with an earlier study (Koelsch, Schmidt
et al., 2002) that found a comparable enlargement of the ERAN in adult musicians. It
should be mentioned that the children in that age group learned an instrument not longer
than approximately 39 months. It is remarkable, that such a comparably short period of
training can lead to a considerable change in the brain correlates of music-syntactic
processing. It was neither expected, nor observed that the amplitude size of the N5 dif-