RUI: A Common Cognitive Foundation for Rhythm in Music and Speech

长期以来，音乐和演讲一直被认为具有共同的认知基础，最近的研究表明，专业作曲家的音乐往往反映出他们母语的语言节奏。然而，简单的音乐制作通常是一项更常见的事业，由社会上更大比例的人实践，而不仅仅是专家作曲家。此外，专家对音乐有一个精心设计的认知和神经框架，使他们能够以新手无法企及的方式感知、组织和创作音乐。这个项目将调查一种假设，即在缺乏这种音乐专业知识的情况下，音乐新手的音乐-语音连接与语言的联系甚至比专家所显示的更紧密。换句话说，缺乏特定的音乐认知框架可能会迫使新手在产生简单的有节奏的曲子时更多地依赖语音节奏。在专家和新手对音乐节奏的感知和产生的一系列实验中，这个项目探索了这样一个命题：音乐与语言在节奏中的联系比以前所展示的更强，也更广泛。在科学文献中，对音乐和语音的共同节奏基础的检查相对较少受到关注，特别是与音调处理相比。例如，在音高领域，关于音乐和语音的音调质量是如何处理的，以及分别处理音乐和语音的左右听觉皮质的明显专门化，已经有了重要的发现。我们对音乐和语音节奏处理的共性的相应知识明显落后。尽管如此，有越来越多的证据表明，音乐和语言在感知和生产方面都存在相互作用。音乐被证明是语言习得的有效辅助，而语言学习反过来也被证明能增强对音乐刺激的统计学习。然而，节奏加工在音乐和语音之间的相互作用中所起的作用仍然不清楚。因此，我们在语言治疗或中风康复等领域利用这些联系的能力是有限的。这个项目将开始为我们对这种联系的了解提供一个理论基础，并将为我们对音乐和演讲的共同基础提供重要的见解。

Music and speech have long been thought to have common cognitive underpinnings, and recent research has shown that the music of expert composers tends to reflect the speech rhythms of their native language. However, simple music production is generally a more common undertaking, practiced by a much larger proportion of society than just expert composers. Moreover, experts have an elaborate cognitive and neural framework for music that enables them to perceive, organize, and produce music in ways that novices can not. This project will investigate the hypothesis that in the absence of this musical expertise, music novices have music-speech connections that are even more tightly bound to language than those shown in experts. In other words, the lack of a specific cognitive framework for music may force novices to rely more heavily on speech rhythms when they produce simple rhythmic tunes. In a series of experiments examining the perception and production of music rhythm by experts and novices, this project explores the proposition that music-speech connections in rhythm are stronger and far more widespread than have been previously shown. The examination of a common rhythmic foundation for music and speech has received relatively little attention in the scientific literature, particularly when compared to pitch processing. In the pitch domain, for example, important discoveries have been made with respect to how the tonal qualities of music and speech are processed and the apparent specialization of the right and left auditory cortices in processing music and speech respectively. Our corresponding knowledge of commonalities in music and speech rhythm processing lags significantly behind. Nonetheless, there is emerging evidence of interplay between music and speech in both perception and production. Music has been shown to be an effective aid in language acquisition, and language learning has conversely been shown to enhance statistical learning of musical stimuli. However, the role that rhythm processing plays in the interplay between music and speech is still unclear. Thus, our ability to capitalize on these links in areas such as speech therapy or stroke rehabilitation is limited. This project will begin to provide a theoretical foundation for our knowledge of this linkage and will provide important insights into the common underpinnings of music and speech.