Sub-Theme 1.3: Working Documents

Theoretical Positions  -  Singing and studying the development of singing skills,  Dr. Mike Forrester - University of Kent, UK

A SELECTIVE DEFICIT IN THE PRODUCTION OF EXACT MUSICAL INTERVALS FOLLOWING RIGHT-HEMISPHERE DAMAGE

COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, 2004, 21 (7), 773–784
Daniele Schön
University of Trieste, Italy and INPC – CNRS, Marseille, France
Bogdan Lorber
University Medical Centre, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Martin Spacal and Carlo Semenza
University of Trieste, Italy

In this study we focused our attention on the production of music in its vocal form. To our knowledge
this is the first detailed description of a dissociation between encoding and retrieval of melodic intervals
in music. We describe the case of a 55-year-old high-level amateur musician, IP, who had suffered a
right-hemisphere stroke. While the patient performs well in music recognition and discrimination
tasks, he is selectively impaired at singing correct intervals. More precisely, IP’s performance relative to
the rhythm and the contour retrieval of musical patterns is preserved; his impairment is limited to
precise pitch retrieval and it is highly correlated to the degree of dissonance of the intervals he is required
to sing. These findings are discussed relative to previous works in neuropsychology of music with regard
to both functional models and brain function localisation. An extended version of the model proposed
by Peretz (1993b) is presented.

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