Following the award of an ERC starting grant we have, today, started our project “Cracking the pitch code in music and language: Insights from congenital amusia (CA) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD)”.
Addressing three specific aims regarding the impacts of cognitive processing styles, pitch processing skills, and language background (tone vs. non-tonal) on the behavioural and neurophysiological characteristics of music, language, and emotion processing in CA and ASD, this 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 manifestations of human neurodevelopmental disorders in music and language processing.
The project is lead by Dr Fang Liu, University of Reading, with Professor Cunmei Jiang (Shanghai Normal University, China) as a project partner.