| Description: |
In this chapter, we will examine the relationships between music training, speech processing, language learning (LL) and second-language acquisition (SLA) from several perceptual and cognitive perspectives. In particular, we will first review current literature that examined the encoding, categorization, and discrimination of basic speech sounds, namely phonemes and syllables, and provide evidence for a general positive influence of music training. We will then discuss the possible influence of music training on more complex tasks that rely on the interaction between perceptual and cognitive functions, namely speech segmentation and associative word learning. In the context of speech segmentation, we will especially focus on word form extraction based on statistical regularities (statistical learning) and prosodic cues (prosodic bootstrapping). Associative word learning will be addressed by presenting a series of experiments aiming at testing the influence of music training on word-meaning acquisition, and at disentangling the underlying perceptual and cognitive processes. Finally, we will draw general conclusions and highlight future perspectives in the field of neuroscience of music. |