An Analogy Between Speech and Music : A Biological Approach to Music Perception

Abstract

This study investigates the perception and expression of music and speech and its possible connotations within the neurological processes of these two more or less distinct functions. The contrast between the extrinsic and intrinsic representation of sound is explored using sources from multiple disciplines to help explore the overlaps between music and language within the human brain. The following chapters explore (in order) 1. Intrinsic perception and its biases 2. The extrinsic nature of sound and the musical perception of it 3. The body and the brain, the autonomic nervous system, some of the most innate survival responses and their physiological expressions, regions of the human brain that are associated with musical perception 4. speech and music, including studies on both the perception and expression of music and speech. The overlap between music and speech is focused with a particular emphasis on emotional prosody and its resemblance to musical articulation, and its possible overlaps due to physiology of basic emotional expression.