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

Music Perception 4
may contribute to group solidarity and promote altruism. Music also might have provided
a good channel of communication over long periods of time: It is incorporated in
everyday activities in pre-literate societies and may enhance the memory capacity in
societies with no written records. [3] Skill development: Singing and other musicmaking
activities may supply opportunities for refining perceptual and motor skills
(e.g., listening to music might provide a sort of “exercise” for hearing).
This chapter contains three main sections, the first describes the development of music
perception, the second focuses on music-syntactic processing (and introduces theoretical
models that account for it as well as empirical evidence on this issue), and the third
introduces some neural correlates of music perception. As music-syntactic processing is
central for the present work, specific emphasis will be put on these processes and their
prerequisites.
2.1 Development of music perception
Effortlessly learning to talk and to sing while being exposed to language and music is an
example of developmental plasticity. Even during (the last trimester of) pregnancy,
sounds in the environment can stimulate the inner ear. These sounds penetrate the tissue
and fluid surrounding the head of the foetus and, therefore, rhythmic patterns of music
are likely to be detected (D. K. James, Spencer, & Stepsis, 2002). Therefore, newborns
show a preference for the voice of their mother and to musical pieces that they have
listened to during late pregnancy, indicating a capacity of implicit learning during foetal
life (Gerhardt & Abrams, 2000).
Responsiveness to infant-directed singing appears inborn. Masataka (1999) reported this
preference in 2-day-old infants who, having been born to congenitally deaf parents, had
no previous exposure to singing. Specific to infant-directed singing are a particular
timbre, perturbations in fundamental frequency (jitter), and intensity (shimmer)
(Trainor, Clark, Huntley, & Adams, 1997; Trehub, Hill, & Kamenetsky, 1997; Trehub,
Schellenberg, & Hill, 1997). These parameters may lead to a certain emotional and
affective expressiveness. Singing has an arousal-modulating effect and may lead to
changes in cortisol level (Shenfield, Trehub, & Nakata, 2003). It is likely that singing
promotes reciprocal emotional ties and reduces the psychological distance between
singer and listener (Lomax, 1968; Trehub, Hill et al., 1997). For example, lullabies are
found in cultures across the world and appear to represent a true music universal. Simplicity
(e.g., simple contour, simple tonal schemes) and repetitiveness appear as key
features of lullabies together with a generally slower tempo, a higher median pitch, and
more descending intervals than in other melodies (Dowling, 1988; Unyk, Trehub, Trainor,
& Schellenberg, 1992). Infants showed an enhanced attention to a woman singing