Pitch Processing in Music and Speech

INTRODUCTION A highly-debated question is to what extent music and language share processing components. Beyond syntax and temporal structure processing, one studied aspect is pitchprocessing in a given domain and across domains (e.g., [1]). Pitch processing is crucial in music. For example, in Western tonal music, it is a form-bearing dimension (next to temporal structures). Pitch processing is also crucial in speech, notably for discriminating questions and statements, as well as for communicating emotional expressions. This is valid for non-tone intonation languages (e.g., English, French) and tone languages (e.g., Mandarin, Thai, Vietnamese). However, for tone languages, pitch processing is even more crucial as pitch information is used for communicating word meaning. Tone languages comprise 70% of the world’s languages and are spoken by more than 50% of the world’s population. In these languages, tone variations (comprising predominantly fundamental frequency (F0) height and contour parameters) at the syllabic level have the same effect on word meaning as do vowel and consonant variations in non-tone languages. For example, the syllable /ma/ combined with different tones (e.g., tones describing contours of rather constant level, rising dipping or falling patterns in Mandarin) represents different lexical items. Interestingly, music and language differ in the size of the pitch differences that are relevant for each of the systems (speech intonation versus musical structures). For speech intonation of non-tonal languages, F0 variations, in particular those indicating statements and questions, are typically coarse (up to more than 12 semitones1 for the pitch rise of the final word in a question; e.g., [2]). For music (as in most research, we are referring here mostly to the Western tonal system), however, the pitch variations are typically more fine-grained (1 or 2 semitones; see [3]). In tone languages, the range of F0 variations can be as small as in music of the Western tonal system or larger depending on the tones and the tone languages. The present paper proposes an overview of research that investigates pitch processing by considering cognitive processes (related to context, learning, memory and/or knowledge) for both music and language material. While extensive research has focussed on pitch processing in musical material as well as the influence of musical expertise (e.g., comparing musicians and nonmusicians), research investigating pitch processing in tone language material for either musicians, nonmusicians or tone language speakers (or both), provides complementary information about underlying mechanisms. Furthermore, investigating deficits (such as in amusia) provides further insights into the potential domain-specificity or domaingenerality of pitch processing mechanisms.