Impaired Encoding of Rapid Pitch Information Underlies Perception and Memory Deficits in Congenital Amusia

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2016 Jan 7

PMID 26732511

Citations 15

Authors

Philippe Albouy

Marion Cousineau

Anne Caclin

Barbara Tillmann

Isabelle Peretz

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Recent theories suggest that the basis of neurodevelopmental auditory disorders such as dyslexia or specific language impairment might be a low-level sensory dysfunction. In the present study we test this hypothesis in congenital amusia, a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by severe deficits in the processing of pitch-based material. We manipulated the temporal characteristics of auditory stimuli and investigated the influence of the time given to encode pitch information on participants' performance in discrimination and short-term memory. Our results show that amusics' performance in such tasks scales with the duration available to encode acoustic information. This suggests that in auditory neuro-developmental disorders, abnormalities in early steps of the auditory processing can underlie the high-level deficits (here musical disabilities). Observing that the slowing down of temporal dynamics improves amusics' pitch abilities allows considering this approach as a potential tool for remediation in developmental auditory disorders.

Citing Articles

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Cortical Morphological Changes in Congenital Amusia: Surface-Based Analyses.

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