Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268

http://mriquestions.com/uploads/3/4/5/7/34572113/language_review1-s2.0-s1053811912004703-main.pdf

A review and synthesis of the first 20 years of PET and fMRI studies of heard speech, spoken language and reading

A grammar of spoken Chinese = 中國話的文法

Language processing is a trait of human species. The knowledge about its neurobiological basis has been increased considerably over the past decades. Different brain regions in the left and right hemisphere have been identified to support particular language functions. Networks involving the temporal cortex and the inferior frontal cortex with a clear left lateralization were shown to support syntactic processes, whereas less lateralized temporo-frontal networks subserve semantic processes. These networks have been substantiated both by functional as well as by structural connectivity data. Electrophysiological measures indicate that within these networks syntactic processes of local structure building precede the assignment of grammatical and semantic relations in a sentence. Suprasegmental prosodic information overtly available in the acoustic language input is processed predominantly in a temporo-frontal network in the right hemisphere associated with a clear electrophysiological marker. Studies with patients suffering from lesions in the corpus callosum reveal that the posterior portion of this structure plays a crucial role in the interaction of syntactic and prosodic information during language processing.

https://www.ehu.eus/HEB/KEPA/Advanced_2012/2011_Friederici_The%20brain%20basis%20of%20language%20processing%20From%20structure%20to%20function.pdf

The Brain Basis of Language Processing: From Structure to Function

The effects of music training in relation to brain plasticity have caused excitement, evident from the popularity of books on this topic among scientists and the general public. Neuroscience research has shown that music training leads to changes throughout the auditory system that prime musicians for listening challenges beyond music processing. This effect of music training suggests that, akin to physical exercise and its impact on body fitness, music is a resource that tones the brain for auditory fitness. Therefore, the role of music in shaping individual development deserves consideration.

/pdf/music-training-for-the-development-of-auditory-skills-4iumvd2s4d.pdf

Music training for the development of auditory skills

http://www.brainmusic.org/EducationalActivitiesFolder/Krishnan_pitchlang2005.pdf

Encoding of pitch in the human brainstem is sensitive to language experience

Whether or not categorical perception results from the operation of a special, language-specific, speech mode remains controversial. In this cross-language (Mandarin Chinese, English) study of the categorical nature of tone perception, we compared native Mandarin and English speakers’ perception of a physical continuum of fundamental frequency contours ranging from a level to rising tone in both Mandarin speech and a homologous (nonspeech) harmonic tone. This design permits us to evaluate the effect of language experience by comparing Chinese and English groups; to determine whether categorical perception is speech-specific or domain-general by comparing speech to nonspeech stimuli for both groups; and to examine whether categorical perception involves a separate categorical process, distinct from regions of sensory discontinuity, by comparing speech to nonspeech stimuli for English listeners. Results show evidence of strong categorical perception of speech stimuli for Chinese but not English listeners. Categorical perception of nonspeech stimuli was comparable to that for speech stimuli for Chinese but weaker for English listeners, and perception of nonspeech stimuli was more categorical for English listeners than was perception of speech stimuli. These findings lead us to adopt a memory-based, multistore model of perception in which categorization is domain-general but influenced by long-term categorical representations.

/pdf/effects-of-language-experience-and-stimulus-complexity-on-wmonn04sjr.pdf

Effects of language experience and stimulus complexity on the categorical perception of pitch direction

Hemispheric roles in the perception of speech prosody.

Crosslanguage comparisons of brainstem-evoked potentials have revealed experience-dependent plasticity in pitch representation for curvilinear f0 contours representative of Mandarin tones. To assess the tolerance limits of this experience-dependent selectivity, we evaluated cross-linguistically (Chinese, English) the pitch strength and tracking accuracy of linear rising and falling f0 ramps representative of Mandarin tones 2 and 4. No crosslanguage differences in pitch strength or accuracy were observed for either tone, indicating that stimuli with linear rising/falling ramps elicit homogeneous pitch representations at the level of the brainstem regardless of language experience. We conclude that pitch extraction at the brainstem level is critically dependent on specific dimensions of pitch contours that native speakers have been exposed to in natural speech contexts.

Yisheng Xu

Papers

Encoding of pitch in the human brainstem is sensitive to language experience

Effects of language experience and stimulus complexity on the categorical perception of pitch direction

Hemispheric roles in the perception of speech prosody.

Specificity of experience-dependent pitch representation in the brainstem.

Neural circuitry underlying sentence-level linguistic prosody