Kotz, S.
Neurocognition of Rhythm in Communication Group, MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Cortical neural correlates of linguistic functions are well documented in the neuroscience and neuropsychological literature. However, the influence of non-linguistic functions such as rhythm and timing are still understudied in speech and auditory language research. This is surprising for several reasons as these functions (i) play a critical role during learning, (ii) have a compensatory function in brain diseases and developmental disorders, (iii) can reveal commonalities/differences between domains (e.g. music and language), and (iv) can further our understanding of subcortical contributions to auditory linguistic and non-linguistic functions. For example, basal ganglia and cerebellar circuitries are involved in beat perception, timing, attention, memory, language, and motor behaviour (see Kotz, Schwartze, & Schmidt-Kassow, 2009). I will discuss our recent speech processing framework (Kotz & Schwartze, 2010) which synthesizes evolutionary, anatomical, and neurofunctional concepts of auditory, temporal and speech processing. This framework will be supported by recent event-related potential (ERP), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from healthy, patient, and L2 populations which demonstrate the impact of timing and rhythm in auditory, speech and language processing.