A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Musical aptitude and second language pronunciation skills in school-aged children: Neural and behavioral evidence




AuthorsMilovanov Riia, Huotilainen Minna, Välimäki Vesa, Esquef Paulo A.A., Tervaniemi Mari

PublisherElsevier

Publication year2008

JournalBrain Research

Volume1194

Issue15

First page 81

Last page89

eISSN1872-6240

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2007.11.042

Web address https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2007.11.042


Abstract

The main focus of this study was to examine the relationship between musical aptitude and second language pronunciation skills. We investigated whether children with superior performance in foreign language production represent musical sound features more readily in the preattentive level of neural processing compared with children with less-advanced production skills. Sound processing accuracy was examined in elementary school children by means of event-related potential (ERP) recordings and behavioral measures. Children with good linguistic skills had better musical skills as measured by the Seashore musicality test than children with less accurate linguistic skills. The ERP data accompany the results of the behavioral tests: children with good linguistic skills showed more pronounced sound-change evoked activation with the music stimuli than children with less accurate linguistic skills. Taken together, the results imply that musical and linguistic skills could partly be based on shared neural mechanisms.



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