Cross-domain Effects of Music and Language Experience on the Representation of Pitch in the Human Auditory Brainstem

■ Neural encoding of pitch in the auditory brainstem is known to be shaped by long-term experience with language or music, implying that early sensory processing is subject to experiencedependent neural plasticity. In language, pitch patterns consist of sequences of continuous, curvilinear contours; in music, pitch patterns consist of relatively discrete, stair-stepped sequences of notes. The primary aim was to determine the influence of domain-specific experience (language vs. music) on the encoding of pitch in the brainstem. Frequency-following responses were recorded from the brainstem in native Chinese, English amateur musicians, and English nonmusicians in response to iterated rippled noise homologues of a musical pitch interval (major third; M3) and a lexical tone (Mandarin tone 2; T2) from the music and language domains, respectively. Pitchtracking accuracy (whole contour) and pitch strength (50 msec sections) were computed from the brainstem responses using autocorrelation a...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: JOCN
• Authors: Gavin M. Bidelman, Jackson T. Gandour, Ananthanarayan Krishnan
• Keywords: Brainstem, JOCN 2011, Pitch Patterns, Pitch Strength