Journal of Speech Pathology & Therapy
Open Access

Research Article

Rhythm Structure Influences Auditory-Motor Interaction During Anticipatory Listening to Simple Singing

¹Interdisciplinary Institute for Music- and Speech-Therapy, Duisburg, Germany

²Clinical Cognition Research, University Hospital Aachen, RWTH Aachen, Germany

³Department of Neurology, Section Neuropsychology, University Hospital Aachen, RWTH Aachen, Germany

*Corresponding Author:

Jungblut Monika
Interdisciplinary Institute for Music and Speech-Therapy Am Lipkamp 14 Duisburg
Germany
Tel: +49-203-711319
E-mail: msjungblut@t-online.de

Received date: September 28, 2015; Accepted date: April 14, 2016; Published date: April 26, 2016

Citation: Monika J, Walter H, Ralph S (2016) Rhythm Structure Influences Auditory-Motor Interaction During Anticipatory Listening to Simple Singing. J Speech Pathol Ther 1:108. doi: 10.4172/2472-5005.1000108

Copyright: © 2016 Monika J, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Purpose: Our objective was to investigate if auditory-motor interactions during anticipatory listening to simple singing also vary depending on rhythm structure as we recently demonstrated for singing production.

Methods: In an event-related fMRI procedure 28 healthy subjects listened to vowel changes with regular groupings (1), regular groupings with rests (2), and irregular groupings (3) in anticipation of repeating the heard stimuli during the latter portion of the experiment.

Results: While subtraction (2) minus (1) yielded activation in the left precentral gyrus, both subtractions from condition (3), resulted in activation of bilateral putamen and caudate.
Only subtraction (3) minus (1) yielded activation of bilateral pre-SMA, and precentral gyrus more distinct in the left hemisphere. Middle, superior, and transverse temporal gyri as well as ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the insula were activated most pronouncedly in the left hemisphere.

Conclusions: The higher the requirement of temporal grouping, the more necessary auditory-motor fine tuning might be resulting in a more distinct and left lateralized temporal, premotor, and prefrontal activation.

If it were possible to support programming and planning of articulatory gestures by anticipatory listening to specifically targeted vocal exercises, this could be beneficial for patients suffering from motor speech disorders as well as aphasia as our current research with patients substantiates.

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