Cracking the pitch code in music and language: A summary of findings from the ERC-funded CAASD project

LMS_2024-05-13
13 May 2024 01.30 PM - 03.00 PM SHHK Tutorial Room 1 (B1-08) Alumni, Current Students, Industry/Academic Partners, Prospective Students, Public
Organised by:
Neurolinguistics and Cognitive Science Lab
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Music and language share similar properties and are processed in overlapping brain regions. As a common information-bearing element in music and language, pitch plays an essential role in encoding musical melodies and signifying linguistic functions. However, two distinct neurodevelopmental conditions, congenital amusia (CA) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), affecting millions of people worldwide, may selectively impact individuals’ ability to process musical versus linguistic pitch. In this talk, I will summarize our recent findings on music, language, and emotion processing in CA and ASD from our ERC-funded CAASD project, with the aim of uncovering the underlying mechanisms of pitch processing in music and language.

Dr. Fang Liu
School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences 
University of Reading
Dr. Fang Liu is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences at the University of Reading. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics and M.S. in Statistics from the University of Chicago. Before joining Reading, she was a lecturer in the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Essex, and did postdoctoral work at University College London, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Stanford University, and Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research aims to understand how the human brain processes pitch information for linguistic and musical purposes during production and perception. She has received funding from the European Research Council (678733, CAASD, 2016-2023; 838787, MAP, 2019-2022) and from the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK (PTA-026-27-2480, 2009-2010).

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