Abstract
The music faculty is not a monolithic entity that a person either has or does not. Rather, it comprises a set of neurally isolable processing components, each having the potential to be specialized for music. Here we propose a functional architecture for music processing that captures the typical properties of modular organization. The model rests essentially on the analysis of music-related deficits in neurologically impaired individuals, but provides useful guidelines for exploring the music faculty in normal people, using methods such as neuroimaging.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Handel, S. Listening: an Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events (MIT press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1989).
Bregman, A. Auditory Scene Analysis. The Perceptual Organization of Sound. (MIT press, London, 1990).
Zatorre, R. & Peretz, I. (eds.) The Biological Foundations of Music (NY Acad. Sci., New York, 2001).
Fodor, J. The Modularity of Mind (MIT press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1983).
Fodor, J. The Mind Doesn't Work That Way (MIT press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001).
Coltheart, M. Modularity and cognition. Trends Cogn. Sci. 3, 115–120 (1999).
Gardner, H. Musical intelligence. in Frames of Mind (ed. Gardner, H.) 31–58 (Basic Books, New York, 1983).
Jackendoff, R. Consciousness and the Computational Mind (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987).
Peretz, I. & Morais, J. Music and modularity. Contemporary Music Rev. 4, 277–291 (1989).
Peretz, I. et al. Functional dissociations following bilateral lesions of auditory cortex. Brain 117, 1283–1302 (1994).
Peretz, I., Belleville, S. & Fontaine, S. Dissociations entre musique et langage après atteinte cérébrale: un nouveau cas d'amusie sans aphasie. Can. J. Exp. Psychol. 51, 354–368 (1997).
Griffiths, T.D. et al. Spatial and temporal auditory processing deficits following right hemisphere infarction: a psychophysical study. Brain 120, 785–794 (1997).
Wilson, S.J. & Pressing, J. Neuropsychological assessment and the modeling of musical deficits. in Music Medicine and Music Therapy: Expanding Horizons (eds. Pratt, R.R. & Erdonmez Grocke, D.) 47–74 (Univ. Melbourne Press, Melbourne, 1999).
Piccirilli, M., Sciarma, T. & Luzzi, S. Modularity of music: evidence from a case of pure amusia. J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry 69, 541–545 (2000).
Steinke, W.R., Cuddy, L.L. & Jakobson, L.S. Dissociations among functional subsystems governing melody recognition after right-hemisphere damage. Cognit. Neuropsychol. 18, 411–437 (2001).
Peretz, I. et al. Congenital amusia: a disorder of fine-grained pitch discrimination. Neuron 33, 185–191 (2002).
Ayotte, J., Peretz, I. & Hyde, K. Congenital amusia: A group study of adults afflicted with a music-specific disorder. Brain 125, 238–251 (2002).
Laignel-Lavastine, M. & Alajouanine, T. Un cas d'agnosie auditive. Société de Neurologie 37, 194–198 (1921).
Godefroy, O. et al. Psychoacoustical deficits related to bilateral subcortical hemorrhages. A case with apperceptive auditory agnosia. Cortex 31, 149–159 (1995).
Mendez, M. Generalized auditory agnosia with spared music recognition in a left-hander. Analysis of a case with a right temporal stroke. Cortex 37, 139–150 (2001).
Metz-Lutz, M.N. & Dahl, E. Analysis of word comprehension in a case of pure word deafness. Brain Lang. 23, 13–25 (1984).
Takahashi, N. et al. Pure word deafness due to left hemisphere damage. Cortex 28, 295–303 (1992).
Yaqub, B.A., Gascon, G.G., Al-Nosha, M. & Whitaker, H. Pure word deafness (acquired verbal auditory agnosia) in an Arabic speaking patient. Brain 111, 457–466 (1988).
Peretz, I. Music perception and recognition. in The Handbook of Cognitive Neuropsychology (ed. Rapp, B.) 519–540 (Psychology Press, Hove, UK, 2001).
Krumhansl, C.L. Cognitive Foundations of Musical Pitch (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1990).
Shepard, R. & Jordan, D. Auditory illusions demonstrating that tones are assimilated to an internalized musical scale. Science 226 1333–1334 (1984).
Tillmann, B., Bharucha, J.J. & Bigand, E. Implicit learning of tonality: a self-organizing approach. Psychol. Rev. 107, 885–913 (2000).
Dowling, W.J. Melodic information processing and its development. in The Psychology of Music (ed. Deutsch, D.) 413–430 (Academic, New York, 1982).
Balzano, G. The pitch set as a level of description for studying musical pitch perception. in Music, Mind and Brain (ed. Clynes, M.) 321–351 (Plenum, New York, 1982).
Trehub, S.E., Schellenberg, E.G. & Kamenetsky, S.B. Infants' and adults' perception of scale structure. J. Exp. PsychoL. Hum. Percept. Perform. 25, 965–975 (1999).
Trehub, S.E. The developmental origins of musicality. Nat. Neurosci. 6, 669–673 (2003).
Peretz, I. Auditory atonalia for melodies. Cognit. Neuropsychol. 10, 21–56 (1993).
Janata, P. et al. The cortical topography of tonal structures underlying Western music. Science 298, 2167–2170 (2002).
Patel, A. Language, music and the brain. Nat. Neurosci. 6, 674–681 (2003).
Coltheart, M. Assumptions and methods in cognitive neuropsychology. in The Handbook of Cognitive Neuropsychology (ed. Rapp, B.) 3–21 (Psychology Press, Hove, UK, 2001).
Janata, P. & Grafton, S. Swinging in the brain: shared neural substrates for behaviors related to sequencing and music. Nat. Neurosci. 6, 682–687 (2003).
Peretz, I. Listen to the brain: the biological perspective on musical emotions. in Music and Emotion: Theory and Research (eds. Juslin, P. & Sloboda, J.) 105–134 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2001).
Hébert, S., Racette, A., Gagnon, L. & Peretz, I. Revisiting the dissociation between singing and speaking in expressive aphasia. Brain (in press).
Dalla Bella, S. & Peretz, I. Congenital amusia interferes with the ability to synchronize with music. Ann. NY Acad. Sci. (in press).
Acknowledgements
Based on research supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to I.P. We thank C. Palmer and T. Griffiths for insightful comments made on an earlier draft.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Peretz, I., Coltheart, M. Modularity of music processing. Nat Neurosci 6, 688–691 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1083
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1083
This article is cited by
-
Music Rhythmic Cueing for the Production of Non-native Speech Rhythm: Evidence from Chinese Learners of French
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research (2024)
-
Effects of intention in the imitation of sung and spoken pitch
Psychological Research (2022)
-
Perception and Production of Statement-Question Intonation in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Developmental Investigation
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (2022)
-
Mandarin-speaking preschoolers’ pitch discrimination, prosodic and phonological awareness, and their relation to receptive vocabulary and reading abilities
Reading and Writing (2021)
-
Music, Language, and The N400: ERP Interference Patterns Across Cognitive Domains
Scientific Reports (2020)