The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music

violation of syntactic and harmonic expectancies were not significantly different (Figure 18.8).
Therefore, these results raise the interesting possibility that a general cognitive process is called
into play when participants are asked to process the structural aspects of an organized
sequence of sounds, be it language or music. Finally, an early right anterior negativity was
found at around 300–400 ms in response to a chord belonging to a distant tonality. These
results paralleled those obtained in language experiments showing that an early left anterior
negativity is also associated with some syntactic violations.^82 Whereas these two negative com-
ponents showed a different distribution over the scalp, with a left predominance for language
and a right predominance for music, they may reflect functionally similar processes.

Temporal structure

Spoken language, as music, is composed of acoustic events that unfold in time. Because of
the temporal structure inherent in both language and music, specific events are expected
at specific times. The main question addressed in the next series of experiments was to

     285

Figure 18.7(A) Examples of the sentences presented in the auditory language experiment. Results showed
increased positivity from simple to ungrammatical sentences. (B) Representation of the circle offifths. Examples
of the stimuli used in the experiment. The target chord, shown by the downward-pointing vertical arrow, is the
congruous chord. The two arrowsbelow the musical notation point to moderately incongruous (nearby key) and
highly incongruous (distant key) target chords. Results also showed increased positivity from the in-key chords
to the distant-key chords. (Adapted from Patel Ref. 81.)

A Language B Music

C G

D

A

E

D F B

Distant

key

Distant

key

Nearby

key

• 
  


• 2 μV
  100 ms

Simple

Complex

Ungrammatical

Pz

+

• Pz

A

E

B

F

The

circle

of

f ifths

Simple:‘Some of the senators had promoted

an old idea of justice’

‘Some of the senators endorsed

promoted an old idea of justice’

Complex:

‘Some of the senators endorsed

the promoted an old idea

of justice’

Ungrammatical:

In key chord

Nearby-key chord

Distant-key chord