Access Type

Open Access Thesis

Date of Award

January 2013

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

First Advisor

Li Hsieh

Abstract

Although music and language share many perceptually functional characteristics, research endeavors are still focusing on the underlying neural circuitry. Past research has indicated a distinction of hemispheric lateralization between music and language processing. Recently, efforts have shifted to the notion of an initial general shared pathway in the brain with auditory stimuli differentiated in later processing to specialized regions. Therefore, both linguistic and musical components have been examined in numerous experiments to discern the possible influence of music and language components on auditory perception and comprehension, including their potential interaction. However, the effects of sentential prosody on early language structural processing and short-term working memory have yet to be examined from a linguistic perspective. Sixteen subjects participated in an experiment using behavioral and electroencephalography (EEG) data to assess the effects of sentential prosody variation on syntactic detection and language memory. Findings from this experiment could support current therapy techniques in speech-language pathology and provide an avenue for the development of new therapy techniques using multiple communication modalities.

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