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→MMN and ERANKoelsch, S. (2009). "Music-syntactic Processing and Auditory Memory – Similarities and Differences between ERAN and MMN". Psychophysiology, 46(1): 179-190.: move ref out of heading |
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When analysing the regularities and structure of [[music]] as well as the processing of music in the [[brain]], certain findings lead to the question
▲When analysing the regularities and structure of [[music]] as well as the processing of music in the [[brain]], certain findings lead to the question, if music is based on a [[syntax]] which could be compared with [[linguistic syntax]]. To get closer to this question it is necessary to have a look at the basic aspects of syntax in [[language]], as language unquestionably presents a complex syntactical system. If music has a matchable syntax, noteworthy equivalents to basic aspects of linguistic syntax have to be found in musical structure. Claiming that syntax is a fundamental element of music, it is interesting to know, if there are also similarities in processing linguistic and '''musical syntax''' in the brain. By implication the processing of music in comparison to language could also give information about the structure of music.
▲==Does music have a syntax comparable to linguistic syntax?==
Syntax in general can be referred to as a study of the principles and rules needed for the construction of a language or as a term in particular describing these principles and rules for a special language.
===Linguistic
Linguistic syntax is especially marked by its structural richness, which becomes apparent in
===Musical syntax===
Concerning musical syntax these three aspects of richness in linguistic syntax as well as the abstractness should be found in music too, if one wants to claim that music has a comparable syntax. An annotation that has to be made concerns the fact that most of the studies dealing with musical syntax are confined to the consideration of Western European tonal music. Thus this article can also only focus on [[tonality|Western tonal music]].<ref name=Patel2008/>▼
Considering the
▲Concerning musical syntax these three aspects of richness in linguistic syntax as well as the abstractness should be found in music too, if one wants to claim that music has a comparable syntax. An annotation that has to be made concerns the fact that most of the studies dealing with musical syntax are confined to the consideration of Western European tonal music. Thus this article can also only focus on [[Western tonal music]].
▲====Multi layered organization====
▲Considering the multi layered organization of music, three levels of [[pitch organization]] can be found in music.
=====Scale degrees=====
The lowest level are [[musical scales]], which consist of seven tones or
=====Chord structure=====
The next superordinate level of pitch organization is the [[chord (music)|chord]] structure, which means that three scale tones with a distance of two scale steps each are played simultaneously and are therefore combined into chords. When building up chords on the basis of a musical scale there are three different kinds of chords resulting, namely
Chordal syntax touches mainly four basic aspects. The first is, that the lowest [[Musical note|note]] in each triad
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=====Key structure=====
The highest level of pitch organization can be seen in [[key (music)|key structure]]. In Western European tonal music the key is based on a scale with its associated chords and chord relations. Scales can be built up as minor or major scales (differing in the succession of intervals between the scale tones) on each of the 12 pitch classes and therefore there are 24 possible keys in tonal music. Analysing [[key (music)|key]] structure in context of musical syntax means to examine the relationship between keys in a piece of music. Usually, not only one key is used to
All in all it can be said that music like the human language has a considerable multi layered organization.
====Hierarchical structure====
Considering the last two basic aspects of linguistic syntax, namely the considerable significance of the order of subunits for the meaning of a sentence as well as the fact that words undertake abstract grammatical functions defined through context and structural relations, it seems to be useful to analyse the hierarchical structure of music to find correlations in music.
=====Ornamentation=====
One aspect of hierarchical structure of music is the [[Ornament (music)|ornamentation]]. The meaning of the word
=====Tension and resolution=====
Searching for other aspects of hierarchical structure of music there is a controversial discussion, if the organization of [[Tension (music)|tension]] and [[Resolution (music)|resolution]] in music can be described as hierarchical structure or only as a purely sequential structure. According to
The question concerning the kind of structure
====Abstractness====
The last aspect to examine is the [[abstraction|abstractness]] of linguistic syntax and its correlate in music. There are two contradicting
All in all the consideration of syntax in music and language shows, that music has a syntax comparable to the linguistic syntax especially concerning a great complexity and a hierarchical organization. Nevertheless, it has to be emphasized, that musical syntax is not a simple variant of linguistic syntax, but a similar complex system with its own substance. That means that it would be the wrong way just to search for musical analogies of linguistic syntactic entities such as nouns or verbs.
==Neuronal processing of musical and linguistic syntax==
Investigating the neuronal processing of musical syntax can serve two proposed aspects.'''<ref>
===Processing of music and musical syntax===
====Requirements====
Processing of music and musical syntax comprises several aspects concerning melodic, rhythmic, metric, timbral and harmonic structure. For the processing of [[Diatonic function|chord functions]] four steps in processing can be described.
(1)Primarily, a tonal centre has to be detected out of the first chords of a sequence. Often the first chord is interpreted as the tonal centre of a sequence and a reevaluation is necessary, if the first chord has another harmonic function.
(2)Successive chords are related to this tonal centre concerning their [[harmonic distance]] from the tonal centre.
(3)As described above (Does music have a syntax?), music has a hierarchical structure in terms of pitch organization and organization of tensioning and releasing in music. Pitch organization concerning chords means, that in a musical phrase the tonic is the most stable chord and experienced as the resting point. The dominant and subdominant anon are more stable than the submediant and the supertonic. The progression of chords in time forms a tonal structure based on pitch organization, in which moving away from the tonic is perceived as tensioning and moving towards the tonic is experienced as releasing. Therefore, hierarchical relations may convey organized patterns of meaning.
(4)Concerning harmonic aspects of major-minor tonal music, Musical syntax can be characterized by statistical regularities in the succession of chord functions in time, that is probabilities of chord transitions. As these regularities are stored in a [[long-term memory]], predictions about following chords are made automatically, when listening to a musical phrase.
====MMN and ERAN
Source:<ref> The violation of these automatically made predictions lead to the observation of so
=====Differences
Even though music syntactic regularities are often simultaneously acoustical similar and music syntactic irregularities are often simultaneously acoustical different, an ERAN but not an MMN can be elicit, when a chord does not represent a physical but a syntactic deviance. To demonstrate this, so
=====Differences-development=====▼
This is represented in the development of the ERAN and MMN. The ERAN cannot be verified in newborn babies, whereas the MMN can actually be demonstrated in [[fetus]]. In two year old children, the ERAN is very small, in five year old children a clear ERAN is found, but with a longer latency than in adults. With the age of 11 years children show an ERAN similar to ERANs in adults. Out of these observation the thesis can be built that the MMN is essential for the establishment and maintenance of representations of the acoustic environment and for processes of the auditory scene analysis. But only the ERAN is completely based on learning to built up a structural model, which is established with reference to representations of syntactic regularities already existing in a long-term memory format. Considering effects of [[training]] both the ERAN and the MMN can be modulated by training.▼
=====Differences
▲This is represented in the development of the ERAN and MMN. The ERAN cannot be verified in newborn babies, whereas the MMN can actually be demonstrated in [[fetus]]. In two
Differences between the ERAN and the MMN also exist in the [[neural sources]] for the main contributions to the ERPs. The sources for the ERAN are located in the [[pars opercularis]] of the [[inferior fronto-lateral cortex]] (inferior [[Brodmann's area]] with contributions from the ventrolateral [[premotor cortex]] and the [[anterior superior temporal gyrus]], whereas the MMN receives its main contributions from and within the vicinity of the [[primary auditory cortex]] with additional sources in the [[frontal cortical areas]]. Therefore the sources for the ERAN basically lie in the [[frontal cortex]] whereas the sources for the MMN are located in the [[temporal lobe]]. Other hints for this thesis emerge from the fact that under a [[propofol]] sedation which mainly has an impact on the frontal cortex, the ERAN is abolished while the MMN is only reduced. At last, the amplitude of the ERAN is reduced under ignore conditions whereas the MMN is largely unaffected by attentional modulations. ▼
▲Differences between the ERAN and the MMN also exist in the [[neural sources]] for the main contributions to the ERPs. The sources for the ERAN are located in the [[pars opercularis]] of
=====Processes to elicit the MMN or ERAN=====
(1)First,
(2)For the MMN regularities are filtered on-line out of the input to create a model of the acoustic environment. At this point, there is a difference to the ERAN as for the ERAN representations of regularities already exist in a long-term memory format and the incoming sound is integrated into a pre existent model of [[musical form|musical structure]].
(3)According to the model of musical structure, predictions concerning forthcoming auditory events are formed. This process is similar for the ERAN and for the MMN.
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(4)At least a comparison between the actually incoming sound and the predictions based on the model is made. This process is partly the same for the MMN and the ERAN as well.
=== Comparison of the processing of musical and linguistic syntax
Source:<ref name=Patel2008/> As the ERAN is similar to an ERP called [[Early Left Anterior Negativity|ELAN]] which can be elicited by violation of linguistic syntax it seems to be obvious that the ERAN really represents syntactic processing. Deduced from this thought an interaction between music-syntactic and language-syntactic processing would be very likely.There are different possibilities in [[neuroscience]] to approach to an answer to the question of an overlap between the neuronal processing of linguistic and musical syntax.▼
▲As the ERAN is similar to an ERP called [[ELAN]] which can be elicited by violation of linguistic syntax it seems to be obvious that the ERAN really represents syntactic processing. Deduced from this thought an interaction between music-syntactic and language-syntactic processing would be very likely.There are different possibilities in [[neuroscience]] to approach to an answer to the question of an overlap between the neuronal processing of linguistic and musical syntax.
====Neuropsychological approach====
This method deals with the question, how structure and function of the [[brain]] relate to outcomes in behaviour and other psychological processes. From this area of research there has been evidence for the dissociation between musical and linguistic syntactic abilities. In case reports it was possible to show that [[amusia]] ( a deficiency in fine-grainded perception of pitch which leads to musical tone-deafness and can be congenital or acquired later in life as from brain damage) is not necessarily linked to [[aphasia]] (severe language impairments following brain damage) and vice versa. This means that individuals with normal speech and language abilities showed musical tone-deafness as well as individuals with language impairments had sufficient means of musical syntactic abilities. The problem of
====Neuroimaging====
Furthermore, results from [[neuroimaging]] led to the "[[
How can the discrepancy between [[neuropsychology]] and neuroimaging be explained?
====Modularity====
In fact, the concept of modularity itself can help to understand the different and apparently contradicting findings in neuropsychologic research and neuroimaging. Introducing the concept of a dual system, in which there is a distinction between syntactic representation and syntactic processing, this could mean, that there is a distinction between long-term structural knowledge in a [[___domain knowledge|___domain]] (representation) and operations conducted on that knowledge (syntactic processing). A damage in an area representing long-term musical knowledge would lead to amusia without aphasia, but a damage in an area representing syntactic processing would cause an impairment of both musical and linguistic syntactic processing.
====Comparison of syntactic processing-three theories====
The comparison of the syntactic processing of language and music is based on three theories which should be mentioned but which are not explained in detail. The first two, the
The language theories contribute to the concept that in order to conceive the structure of a sentence, resources are consumed. If the conception of a this structure is difficult due to the fact that distant words belong to each other or an expected structure of the sentence is violated, more resources, namely the ones for activating low-activation items, are consumed.
Violating an anticipated structure in music could mean a harmonically unexpected note or chord in a musical sequence. As in language this is associated with a
====SSIRH-the leading concept====▼
Overall these theories lead to the “shared syntactic integration resources hypothesis” as the areas from which low-activation items are activated could be the correlate to the overlap between linguistic and musical syntax.▼
Strong evidence for the existence of this overlap comes from studies, in which music-syntactic and a linguistic-syntactic irregularities were presented simultaneously. They showed an interaction between the ERAN and the [[LAN]] (left anterior negativity;ERP which is elicited by linguistic-syntactic irregularities). The LAN elicited was reduced when an irregular word was presented simultaneously with an irregular chord compared to the condition when an irregular word was presented with a regular chord. Contrary to this finding the phMMN elicited by frequency deviants did not interact with the LAN. ▼
From this facts it can be reasoned that the ERAN relies on neural resources related to syntactic processing (Koelsch 2008). Furthermore they give strong evidence for the thesis, that there is an overlap between the processing of musical and linguistic syntax and therefore that syntactic operations (musical as well as linguistic) are modular.▼
▲Overall these theories lead to the
▲Strong evidence for the existence of this overlap comes from studies, in which music-syntactic and a linguistic-syntactic irregularities were presented simultaneously. They showed an interaction between the ERAN and the [[LAN]] (left anterior negativity;ERP which is elicited by linguistic-syntactic irregularities). The LAN elicited was reduced when an irregular word was presented simultaneously with an irregular chord compared to the condition when an irregular word was presented with a regular chord. Contrary to this finding the phMMN elicited by frequency deviants did not interact with the LAN.
▲From this facts it can be reasoned that the ERAN relies on neural resources related to syntactic processing (Koelsch 2008). Furthermore, they give strong evidence for the thesis, that there is an overlap between the processing of musical and linguistic syntax and therefore that
==References==
{{Citizendium}}
<references/>
{{Music psychology}}
[[Category:Syntax]]
[[Category:Music psychology]]
[[Category:Musical terminology]]
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