Music reading expertise modulates hemispheric lateralization in English word processing but not in Chinese character processing

Music literacy improves reading skills via bilateral orthographic development

Considerable evidence suggests that musical education induces structural and functional neuroplasticity in the brain. This study aimed to explore the potential impact of such changes on word-reading proficiency. We investigated whether musical training promotes the development of uncharted orthographic regions in the right hemisphere leading to better reading abilities. A total of 60 healthy, right-handed culturally matched professional musicians and controls took part in this research. They were categorised as normo-typical readers based on their reading speed (syl/sec) and subdivided into two groups of relatively good and poor readers. High density EEG/ERPs were recorded while participants engaged in a note or letter detection task. Musicians were more fluent in word, non-word and text reading tests, and faster in detecting both notes and words. They also exhibited greater N170 and P300 responses, and target-non target differences for words than controls. Similarly, good readers showed larger N170 and P300 responses than poor readers. Increased reading skills were associated to a bilateral activation of the occipito/temporal cortex, during music and word reading. Source reconstruction also showed a reduced activation of the left fusiform gyrus, and of areas devoted to attentional/ocular shifting in poor vs. good readers, and in controls vs. musicians. Data suggest that music literacy acquired early in time can shape reading circuits by promoting the specialization of a right-sided reading area, whose activity was here associated with enhanced reading proficiency. In conclusion, music literacy induces measurable neuroplastic changes in the left and right OT cortex responsible for improved word reading ability.

Music reading experience modulates eye movement pattern in English reading but not in Chinese reading

Here we tested the hypothesis that in Chinese-English bilinguals, music reading experience may modulate eye movement planning in reading English but not Chinese sentences due to the similarity in perceptual demands on processing sequential symbol strings separated by spaces between music notation and English sentence reading. Chinese–English bilingual musicians and non-musicians read legal, semantically incorrect, and syntactically (and semantically) incorrect sentences in both English and Chinese. In English reading, musicians showed more dispersed eye movement patterns in reading syntactically incorrect sentences than legal sentences, whereas non-musicians did not. This effect was not observed in Chinese reading. Musicians also had shorter saccade lengths when viewing syntactically incorrect than correct musical notations and sentences in an unfamiliar alphabetic language (Tibetan), whereas non-musicians did not. Thus, musicians’ eye movement planning was disturbed by syntactic violations in both music and English reading but not in Chinese reading, and this effect was generalized to an unfamiliar alphabetic language. These results suggested that music reading experience may modulate perceptual processes in reading differentially in bilinguals’ two languages, depending on their processing similarities.

The impact of musical training in symbolic and non-symbolic audiovisual judgements of magnitude

Quantity estimation can be represented in either an analog or symbolic manner and recent evidence now suggests that analog and symbolic representation of quantities interact. Nonetheless, those two representational forms of quantities may be enhanced by convergent multisensory information. Here, we elucidate those interactions using high-density electroencephalography (EEG) and an audiovisual oddball paradigm. Participants were presented simultaneous audiovisual tokens in which the co-varying pitch of tones was combined with the embedded cardinality of dot patterns. Incongruencies were elicited independently from symbolic and non-symbolic modality within the audio-visual percept, violating the newly acquired rule that “the higher the pitch of the tone, the larger the cardinality of the figure.” The effect of neural plasticity in symbolic and non-symbolic numerical representations of quantities was investigated through a cross-sectional design, comparing musicians to musically naïve controls. Individual’s cortical activity was reconstructed and statistically modeled for a predefined time-window of the evoked response (130–170 ms). To summarize, we show that symbolic and non-symbolic processing of magnitudes is re-organized in cortical space, with professional musicians showing altered activity in motor and temporal areas. Thus, we argue that the symbolic representation of quantities is altered through musical training.

Music-reading expertise associates with face but not Chinese character processing ability

A growing number of behavioural and neuroimaging studies have investigated the cognitive mechanisms and neural substrates underlying various forms of visual expertise, such as face and word processing. However, it remains poorly understood whether and to what extent the acquisition of one form of expertise would be associated with that of another. The current study examined the relationship between music-reading expertise and face and Chinese character processing abilities. In a series of experiments, music experts and novices performed discrimination and recognition tasks of musical notations, faces, and words. Results consistently showed that musical experts responded more accurately to musical notations and faces, but not to words, than did musical novices. More intriguingly, the music expert's age of training onset could well predict their face but not word processing performance: the earlier musical experts began musical notation reading, the better their face processing performance. Taken together, our findings provide preliminary and converging evidence that music-reading expertise links with face, but not word, processing, and lend support to the notion that the development of different types of visual expertise may not be independent, but rather interact with each other during their acquisition.

The German Music@Home: Validation of a questionnaire measuring at home musical exposure and interaction of young children

The present study introduces the German version of the original version of the Music@Home questionnaire developed in the UK, which systematically evaluates musical engagement in the home environment of young children. Two versions are available, an Infant version for children aged three to 23 months and a Preschool version for children aged two to five and a half years. For the present study, the original Music@Home questionnaire was translated from English into German and 656 caregivers completed the questionnaire online. A confirmatory factor analysis showed moderate to high fit indices for both versions, confirming the factor structure of the original questionnaire. Also, the reliability coefficients for the subscales (Parental beliefs, Child engagement with music, Parent initiation of singing, Parent initiation of music-making for the Infant version and Parental beliefs, Child engagement with music, Parent initiation of music behavior and Breadth of musical exposure for the Preschool version) ranged from moderate to high fits. Furthermore, the test-retest analysis (N = 392) revealed high correlations for the general factor and all subscales confirming their internal reliability. Additionally, we included language questionnaires for children of two and three years of age. Results showed that higher scores on the Music@Home questionnaire were moderately associated with better language skills in two-year-olds (N = 118). In sum, the study presents the validated German Music@Home questionnaire, which shows good psychometric properties. The two versions of the questionnaire are available for use in order to assess home musical engagement of young children, which could be of interest in many areas of developmental research.

Functional laterality of the anterior and posterior occipitotemporal cortex is affected by language experience and processing strategy, respectively

Both language experience and processing strategy have been found to affect functional lateralization of the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOT). In this study, we adopted a factorial design to investigate the effects of language experience and processing strategy on functional lateralization of different vOT subregions in the processing of familiar (Chinese characters) and unfamiliar characters (Korean Hangul characters) in logographic writings. The processing strategy was manipulated by using part- and whole-based judgement tasks to induce part- and whole-based processing, respectively. The results showed that language experience enhanced neural responses in the anterior and middle vOT subregions, whereas part-based processing enhanced neural activations in the middle and posterior vOT subregions. More importantly, increased neural activations in the left hemisphere induced by language experience and part-based processing resulted in left laterality of the anterior and posterior vOT subregions, respectively, in the processing of logographic characters. These results suggested that functional lateralization of the anterior and posterior vOT subregions were respectively affected by language experience and processing strategy.