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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Comparing the processing of music and language meaning using EEG and fMRI provides evidence for similar and distinct neural representations
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Nikolaus Steinbeis
  • Stefan Koelsch
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title PLoS ONE
Publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 1932-6203
Volume 3
Number 5
Page Range e2226
Date 2008
Abstract Text Recent demonstrations that music is capable of conveying semantically meaningful information has raised several questions as to what the underlying mechanisms of establishing meaning in music are, and if the meaning of music is represented in comparable fashion to language meaning. This paper presents evidence showing that expressed affect is a primary pathway to music meaning and that meaning in music is represented in a very similar fashion to language meaning. In two experiments using EEG and fMRI, it was shown that single chords varying in harmonic roughness (consonance/dissonance) and thus perceived affect could prime the processing of subsequently presented affective target words, as indicated by an increased N400 and activation of the right middle temporal gyrus (MTG). Most importantly, however, when primed by affective words, single chords incongruous to the preceding affect also elicited an N400 and activated the right posterior STS, an area implicated in processing meaning of a variety of signals (e.g. prosody, voices, motion). This provides an important piece of evidence in support of music meaning being represented in a very similar but also distinct fashion to language meaning: Both elicit an N400, but activate different portions of the right temporal lobe.
Free access at PubMed ID
Digital Object Identifier 10.1371/journal.pone.0002226
PubMed ID 18493611
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Additional Information © 2008 Steinbeis, Koelsch. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.