Does music facilitate language acquisition?

The latest issue of Cognition contains a brief, yet interesting study on the role of music in language acquisition. While several authors have shown that language learning can be modeled according to the statistical properties of syllable sentences, just a few studies showed that for musical information a similar case for statistical learning can be made.

Daniele Schön (Marseille, France) and collaborators show in their study that a group of French participants, with an average age of 23, do better in learning new words associated with distinct pitches –a melody- than those being spoken in monotonous fashion (In this case really monotonous since it was a speech synthesizer). The study is especially interesting in the context of research on infant-directed speech that turns out to be quite ‘musical’ (i.e. melody and rhythm play an important role), especially when compared to ‘real’ speech, as such indirectly supporting the idea that these musical aspects actually facilitate communication and learning in infants.

However, since only language learning was tested, it could not be shown that the participants relied more on musical than on linguistic information. An effect one could expect since several studies have shown that musical information can help in memorization and learning. While the authors were able to show that

“learning a new language, especially in the first learning phase wherein one needs to segment new words, may largely benefit of the motivational and structuring properties of music in song”

unfortunately —because of the experimental design used— no conclusion can be drawn about whether learners rely more on musical or linguistic information. What could be shown was that linguistic information took precedence over musical statistical cues. I would have expected the opposite, like it was found in infant studies.

SCHON, D., BOYER, M., MORENO, S., BESSON, M., PERETZ, I., KOLINSKY, R. (2008). Songs as an aid for language acquisition. Cognition, 106(2), 975-983. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2007.03.005

A sense for rhythm? (Part 3)

Last week quite a few people participated in an informal listening test on rhythm. It gratefully used some of the stimuli from a study by Hannon and Trehub (H&T).*

H&T studied the sensitivity of listeners to detect violations of rhythmic structure in simple meters (i.e. duple and triple meter; such as a march or waltz) and more complex meters (i.e. compound meter, such as 5/8 and 7/8, common to, e.g., Balkan music).
N.B. Last week’s fragment 1 was an example of a stimulus in a simple meter, fragment 2 was one in a complex meter (see earlier blog).

H&Ts study showed that North American participants judged the structure-violating music examples (e.g., the A-fragments in last weeks blog) as less similar to the original version than the structure-preserving ones (e.g., the B-fragments), but only so for the examples is simple meter (Fragment 1 in the earlier blog).

In a second experiment they showed that participants of Bulgarian or Macedonian origin could spot the rhythmic violations in both complex and simple-meter contexts. Arguably, because complex meters are more common in Balkan music. As such this is evidence for an effect of exposure or enculturation on rhythmic sensitivity. (Interestingly, the readers who did the test last week, performed quite similar to the Bulgarian participant group; But note: we did not replicate the study last week, it was just a demonstration).

An additional surprise of the H&T study was that 6-month-old infants (from North American origin), when exposed to the same stimuli, did as well in both metrical contexts: so very much like the Bulgarian adults. This is support for the idea that a sensitivity for rhythm and meter is actually active at an early age, and hinting that the North American participants lost some of these capabilities, instead of Balkan participants learning them. Of course, further research is needed to substantiate this, but the study is intriguing on its own.

Hannon, E.E., Trehub, S.E. (2005). Metrical Categories in Infancy and Adulthood. Psychological Science, 16(1), 48-55. DOI: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.00779.x

A sense for rhythm? (Part 2)

This week an informal listening test that might reveal something about your sense for rhythm. If you have a minute to spare, please continue reading and respond to the three questions below. The outcome might surprise you!

First, state whether you consider yourself having a sense for rhythm (N.B. you can be honest, the responses are recorded anonymously):


Then do the following two comparisons. First, listen to the following folksong (Fragment 1):

Fragment 1

Then compare Fragment 1A and 1B to 1, and decide which of the two is rhythmically dissimilar:

Fragment 1A
Fragment 1B

Then listen to Fragment 2:

Fragment 2
And finally, compare Fragment 2A and 2B to 2, and decide which of the two is rhythmically dissimilar?

Fragment 2A
Fragment 2B

These examples are taken from a study by Hannon and Trehub published in Psychological Science.* There is at least one surprising results presented in that study. For now, please do the informal experiment, and I will tell more about the results next week. [see here]

Erin E. Hannon, Sandra E. Trehub (2005) Metrical Categories in Infancy and Adulthood. Psychological Science 16 (1), 48–55. DOI: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.00779.x

What should a listening machine be able to do?

This week we'll have a kick-off meeting preparing for our project Zonder luisteraar geen muziek [No music without a listener] that has been nominated for the Dutch Academic Year Prize.

One of the questions the UvA-team (consisting of Vivienne Aerts, Shane Burmania, Olivia Ladinig, and me) will brainstorm about is: Imagine what a listening machine would look like, a machine that is able to listen and react in a human and musical way. What should such a machine know, what should it listen for, how could it respond, and how can we compare and evaluate such machines? One of the challenges is how to turn such a question into a compelling and fun problem to think about, aimed at students that want to combine their interest in music with a liberal arts and sciences education.

While it might look like a simple question, the design of a 'listening machine' that embodies the musical and listening skills common to most humans turns out to be a full-fledged research program, and it is part of the scientific enterprise generally known as music cognition. In this field of research computational modeling (formalizing a theory in the form of a computer program and relating it to human behavior) is an influential methodology that has contributed to a further understanding of music as a process in which the performer and the listener play a central role.

While for a long time music was a topic hidden away under subject headings like 'pitch' and 'time perception' in scientific reference books, in recent years several disciplines, ranging from the humanities to the social and natural sciences, show a growing interest in the scientific study of music. A recent example is Robert Zatorre who promotes music as “the food of neuroscience” (see Nature). It looks like the beginning of something ...

'Zonder luisteraar geen muziek?'

This weekend the music cognition group from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) will be officially nominated for the Academische Jaarprijs, an initiative of the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad and two scientific organizations (NWO and KNAW) to promote the dissemination and popularization of science. The UvA-team will participate with the project proposal ‘Zonder luisteraar geen muziek’ ['No Music without a listener'].*

The aim of the UvA-project is to show that we all have a talent for music. While some people might think they have no sense for rhythm or claim not to be able to sing a melody in tune, most of us do appreciate music and are perfectly capable of distinguishing between one performance or another. In other words, we will stress the musical competence of the average listener (as opposed to musical competence associated with musicianship).

The nominated communication plan aims to design an interactive website that allows listeners to test their musical listening capabilities (based on research by our group and that of authors like Bigand, Dalla Bella, Hannon, Peretz and Schellenberg). Participants might be surprised of what they are able to hear!

* See special issue of NRC Handelsblad

Is rock music dangerous?

Last Saturday the first edition of Noorderslag Science was held, during a sold-out Noorderslag in Groningen, NL. Noorderslag Science is a seminar on pop music, the music industry and related topics (such as music cognition) that gives researchers an opportunity to present their work to a wide audience.

Tom ter Bogt (professor of popular music at the University of Utrecht), with whom I co-organized the event, presented work on fame and (early) death in pop music. Next to a review of the empirical work of e.g. Mark Bellis (“pop artists die younger”), he presented his own research on the question whether Gothic rock has a (bad) effect on adolescent behavior.*

Based on large dataset on adolescents’ musical taste, he found a correlation between the liking of Gothic Rock and suicidal thoughts (up to ten percent of the group interviewed). Interestingly, a similar effect was shown for several other genres as well, suggesting that music —in general— is more appreciated in this particular age period.

While the relation is correlational and not causal, it suggests that without music these episodes of depressive thought might be far more dangerous for these adolescents (since the actual suicide rate is, luckily, far below the ten percent mentioned above). A striking example of the importance of music and its comforting role, in this case —apparently— a fact of life and death.

* Mulder, J., Bogt, T.t., Raaijmakers, Q., Vollebergh, W. (2007). Music Taste Groups and Problem Behavior. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 36(3), 313-324. DOI: 10.1007/s10964-006-9090-1

Too catchy a tune ? (Part 2)

Below the fragment belonging to the blog entry of two weeks ago on the earworm:

Is beat induction special? (Part 3)

The Dutch TV program Boeken introduced the Cockatoo-video as the most fun and intriguing video of the year. Tijs Goldschmidt (a biologist and writer known from, e.g., Darwin's Dreampond) tells about the phenomenon of beat induction and why it is so relevant to cognitive scientists (see also an earlier blog).



In his upcoming book called Music, Language and the Brain, Ani Patel chose beat induction — referring to it as ‘beat-based rhythm processing’— as a key area in music-language research. He proposes it an important candidate in demonstrating "that there is a fundamental aspect of music cognition that is not a byproduct of cognitive mechanisms that also serve other, more clearly adaptive, domains (e.g. auditory scene analysis or language)." (Patel, 2008).

I couldn't agree more: beat induction could well turn out to be a key cognitive process in the evolution of music, and arguably central to the origins of music.*

With regard to the video mentioned above: Patel’s group is currently systematically filming the Cockatoo for analyses.

P.S. Yet another item from Dutch TV on beat induction:


*1994 demo on beat induction.

In Amsterdam at the end of the year?

As an unrelated yet musical blog entry, today a plug for my brother. Since I will be spending time, like most of you, with friends and family, I might well share the event that I look forward to. In the pop-temple Paradiso —on December 29— three groups will perform a wide variety of music ranging from electro (Wired Paradise), Schubert (Mulder & Honing) to Orient (Rima Khcheich Group). You might like it.

Too catchy a tune? (earworm)

It’s a well-known phenomenon in media land that once you contributed to a TV item on a compelling —general interest— question, people will return to you with the same question over and over again, and, basically, wanting you to redo the same answer :-)

It happened to me a few years ago when I was asked to contribute to a Dutch TV item on the question why some melodies stick in your mind. My first answer was: we do not know. Since, if we knew, an ‘earworm’-generating computer program would exist that can generate melodies that are guaranteed to stick in people’s mind for days. In this particular case however, I’m sure nobody would mind. Unfortunately, now —four years later— still little is understood of the phenomenon. [And yes, again on Dutch TV]

What we do know —mainly from questionnaire-style research— is that most people suffer from the ‘earworm’ phenomenon (also referred to as brainworm, cognitive itch, or musical imagery repetition), females slightly more than males. And that the tunes that spontaneously pop-up in one’s mind are generally not the most striking compositions. Actually, they are commonly reported as being simply irritating (see examples on link below).

Why does this happen? And what does it tells us about our cognition? And why does it happen with music, and significantly less with text or images? What is in the musical structure of that particular fragment that makes it spontaneously pop-up from memory? PhD-students in cognitive science looking for an exciting relatively unexplored topic in music (neuro)cognition, jump on it!

Dutch webpage on this topic.