Impaired encoding of rapid pitch information underlies perception and memory deficits in congenital amusia.

ABSTRACT: Recent theories suggest that the basis of neurodevelopmental auditory disorders such as dyslexia or specific language impairment might be a low-level sensory dysfunction. In the present study we test this hypothesis in congenital amusia, a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by severe deficits in the processing of pitch-based material. We manipulated the temporal characteristics of auditory stimuli and investigated the influence of the time given to encode pitch information on participants' performance in discrimination and short-term memory. Our results show that amusics' performance in such tasks scales with the duration available to encode acoustic information. This suggests that in auditory neuro-developmental disorders, abnormalities in early steps of the auditory processing can

SUBMITTER: Albouy P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4702148 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature