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Abstract:
Abstract: This work explores whether the cortical areas
involved in the manipulation of visually presented musical symbols
are dissociable from those involved in the manipulation of
linguistic symbols. To investigate this issue, we performed the
following three comparisons using functional magnetic resonance
imaging: 1) comparison between reading musical notes and a visual
control condition, 2) comparison between two kinds of musical
symbols, i.e., notes on score and pitch names written in letters,
and 3) comparison between reading musical symbols and reading
linguistic symbols, i.e., words or sentences. We found activations
in the bilateral superior parietal lobule, left prefrontal cortex,
and left lateral occipital cortex by the first comparison, and
these areas were commonly activated by the two conditions of the
second comparison. Among these areas, a region in the left lateral
occipital cortex within Brodmann areas 18/19 was also activated
during all language tasks in the third comparison. In contrast, the
corresponding region in the right occipital cortex was more
activated with reading notes on score than with reading either
pitch names or linguistic symbols. From these results, we conclude
that the left occipital region is commonly involved in the
manipulation of musical and linguistic symbols, while the right
region is more involved in musical symbol processing, especially
with notes on score.
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