Speech versus song: multiple pitch-sensitive areas revealed by a naturally occurring musical illusion.

ABSTRACT: It is normally obvious to listeners whether a human vocalization is intended to be heard as speech or song. However, the 2 signals are remarkably similar acoustically. A naturally occurring boundary case between speech and song has been discovered where a spoken phrase sounds as if it were sung when isolated and repeated. In the present study, an extensive search of audiobooks uncovered additional similar examples, which were contrasted with samples from the same corpus that do not sound like song, despite containing clear prosodic pitch contours. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that hearing these 2 closely matched stimuli is not associated with differences in response of early auditory areas. Rather, we find that a network of 8 regions, including the anterior superior

SUBMITTER: Tierney A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3539450 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature