The amusic brain: lost in music, but not in space.

Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic disorder of music processing that is currently ascribed to a deficit in pitch processing. A recent study challenges this view and claims the disorder might arise as a consequence of a general spatial-processing deficit. Here, we assessed spatial processing abiliti...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Barbara Tillmann, Pierre Jolicoeur, Masami Ishihara, Nathalie Gosselin, Olivier Bertrand, Yves Rossetti, Isabelle Peretz
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2010-04-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/20422050/?tool=EBI
Description
Summary:Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic disorder of music processing that is currently ascribed to a deficit in pitch processing. A recent study challenges this view and claims the disorder might arise as a consequence of a general spatial-processing deficit. Here, we assessed spatial processing abilities in two independent samples of individuals with congenital amusia by using line bisection tasks (Experiment 1) and a mental rotation task (Experiment 2). Both amusics and controls showed the classical spatial effects on bisection performance and on mental rotation performance, and amusics and controls did not differ from each other. These results indicate that the neurocognitive impairment of congenital amusia does not affect the processing of space.
ISSN:1932-6203