Common neural bases for processing speech prosody and music: An integrated model

It is shared notion that speech and music processing share some commonalities. Brain bioelectrical activity was recorded in healthy participants listening to music obtained by digitally transforming real speech into melodies played by viola. Sentences were originally pronounced with a positive or negative affective prosody. The researchs aim was to investigate if the emotional content of music was extracted similarly to how the affective prosody of speech is processed. EEG was recorded from 128 electrodes in 20 healthy students. Participants had to detect rare neutral piano sounds while ignoring viola melodies. Stimulus negative valence increased the amplitude of frontal P300 and N400 ERP components while a late inferior frontal positivity was enhanced in response to positive melodies. Similar ERP markers were previously found for processing positive and negative music, vocalizations and speech. Source reconstruction applied to N400 showed that negative melodies engaged the right superior temporal gyrus and right anterior cingulate cortex, while positive melodies engaged the left middle and inferior temporal gyrus and the inferior frontal cortex. An integrated model is proposed depicting a possible common circuit for processing the emotional content of music, vocalizations and speech, which might explain some universal and relatively innate brain reaction to music.