Cracking the pitch code in music and language: Insights from congenital amusia and autism spectrum disorders
ERC-2015-StG-678733-CAASD, 2016-2023, European Research Council, €1,488,814
Our CAASD project aims to investigate the underlying mechanisms of pitch processing in language and music through comparative studies of two neurodevelopmental conditions: congenital amusia (CA) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The two conditions demonstrate intriguing differences in music, language, emotion, pitch, memory, and cognitive processing that provide us with a unique opportunity to examine the underlying mechanisms of music and language processing.
In particular, our project aims at constructing a unified account of pitch processing in music and language through systematic studies of the behavioural and neural bases of musical, linguistic, and emotional pitch processing in Mandarin-speaking individuals with and without CA and ASD, in comparison with English-speaking individuals with and without CA/ASD.
We will address the following three specific aims using behavioural, electroencephalography (EEG), and neuro-cognitive methods.
Aim 1: To elucidate the differences in speech, music, and emotional processing in CA and ASD, and how and to what extent pitch processing and cognitive abilities impact these differences.
![](https://research.reading.ac.uk/caasd-project/wp-content/uploads/sites/103/2019/03/16.CAASD_diagram2.jpg)
Aim 2: To pinpoint the neurophysiological origins of differences in speech and musical processing in CA and ASD.
![](https://research.reading.ac.uk/caasd-project/wp-content/uploads/sites/103/2019/03/17.CAASD_diagram3.jpg)
Aim 3: To determine the impact of language background (Mandarin versus English) on communicative abilities of ASD individuals.
![](https://research.reading.ac.uk/caasd-project/wp-content/uploads/sites/103/2019/03/18.CAASD_diagram4.jpg)
Our research will not only help reveal the underlying mechanisms of the two defining aspects of human cognition, music and language, but also form a laboratory for testing key hypotheses about the bio-behavioural characteristics of music and language processing.