neurologically dissociated [Peretz and Kolinsky 1993],with the left hemi-
sphere apparently better at processing the latter.) The right hemisphere
also provides and interprets the melodic nuances of speech,the tone of
voice,that is important for conveying affective or emotional connota-
tions of speech.It thus appears that melody has emotional content for
both language and music;recall that limbic structures that process emo-
tions were activated on the right as volunteers imagined music (Chen
et al.1996).
To be more specific,a PET study showed that simple judgments about
musical pitch use a neural network that includes the right prefrontal
cortex,whereas the more difficult task of judging remembered pitches
recruits wider areas of the right (and to a lesser extent left) hemisphere,
especially frontal and temporal cortices (Zatorre,Evans,and Meyer
1994).Prefrontal cortex is generally known to be important for keeping
information in mind during goal-oriented tasks.Of interest,pitch dis-
criminations during speech (Zatorre et al.1992),as well as music,
produce activation in the right prefrontal cortex.In general,the right
hemisphere is also more sensitive to harmony (Tramo and Bharucha
1991),concordant with its proclivity for recognizing and producing har-
monic ratios within complex tones (Preisler,Gallasch,and Schulter
1989).These authors (p.139) suggest that the right hemisphere’s appar-
ent superiority at producing and recognizing simple ratios within steady-
state auditory information might also hold for its processing of spatial
information in other modalities,thus accounting for its greater aesthetic
sensitivity (figure 13.2).Music Meets Speech:Singing in the Brain
Given the widely held view that the left hemisphere is dominant for lan-
guage and the right is superior for music,it seems obvious to ask about
the neurological substrates for the one activity that clearly incorporates
both endeavors,namely,singing with words.For some years singing
without words (i.e.,replacing words with “la,la,la”) has been known to
be disrupted much more by inhibition,or damage,to the right than to
the left hemisphere (Gordon and Bogen 1974).In fact,the right hemi-
sphere’s ability to carry a tune is put to good use in melodic intonation
therapy (Albert,Sparks,and Helm 1973),whereby patients with Broca’s
aphasia who cannot speak are taught to express their thoughts by
embedding them in simple melodies.As patients improve,the melodic
aspect is faded.In what may be the first experiment to investigate hemi-
spheric dominance for singing both with and without words,Cadalbert
et al.(1994) measured lip opening asymmetry in normal subjects during
both tasks.Singing with words is associated with wider right-side lip
opening than is the case for singing without words,indicating involve-204 Dean Falk