Effects of Psychoacoustic Training on the Pre-Attentive Processing of Harmonic Sounds and Syllables

• Published in: Journal of speech, language, and hearing research Vol. 65; no. 5; pp. 2003 - 2015
• Main Authors: Frey, Aline, Barbaroux, Mylène, Dittinger, Eva, Besson, Mireille
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 01.05.2022
• Subjects: Acoustics; Adults; Analysis; Auditory Perception; Brain; Causality; Cognitive science; Control Groups; Experiments; Forecasts and trends; Harmony (Music); Intonation; Language Processing; Longitudinal studies; Methods; Music; Musicians & conductors; Phonology; Psychoacoustics; Semantics; Speech; Speech perception; Syllables; Tone Languages; Training; France
• ISSN: 1092-4388; 1558-9102; 1558-9102
• DOI: 10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00441

Purpose: This article aimed at investigating the neural underpinnings of music-to-language transfer effects at the pre-attentive level of processing. Method: We conducted a longitudinal experiment with a test-training-retest procedure. Non-musician adults were trained either on frequency (experimental group) or on intensity (control group) of harmonic tones using methods from psychophysics. Pre- and post-training, we recorded brain electrical activity and we analyzed the mismatch negativity (MMN) and the P3a component both to harmonic complex sounds and to syllables varying in frequency. Results: Frequency training influenced the pre-attentive perception of pitch for large harmonic deviant sounds but not for syllables. Conclusion: Results are discussed in terms of near and far transfer effects from psychoacoustic training to pre-attentive pitch processing and as possibly showing some limits to transfer effects.