Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Australia.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2011 Dec;32(12):2115-30. doi: 10.1002/hbm.21173. Epub 2010 Dec 15.
Vocal singing (singing with lyrics) shares features common to music and language but it is not clear to what extent they use the same brain systems, particularly at the higher cortical level, and how this varies with expertise. Twenty-six participants of varying singing ability performed two functional imaging tasks. The first examined covert generative language using orthographic lexical retrieval while the second required covert vocal singing of a well-known song. The neural networks subserving covert vocal singing and language were found to be proximally located, and their extent of cortical overlap varied with singing expertise. Nonexpert singers showed greater engagement of their language network during vocal singing, likely accounting for their less tuneful performance. In contrast, expert singers showed a more unilateral pattern of activation associated with reduced engagement of the right frontal lobe. The findings indicate that singing expertise promotes independence from the language network with decoupling producing more tuneful performance. This means that the age-old singing practice of 'finding your singing voice' may be neurologically mediated by changing how strongly singing is coupled to the language system.
声乐演唱（带歌词的演唱）具有音乐和语言的共同特征，但尚不清楚它们在多大程度上使用相同的大脑系统，特别是在更高的皮质水平上，以及这种情况如何因专业知识而异。26 名不同歌唱能力的参与者进行了两项功能成像任务。第一项任务使用正字法词汇检索来检查隐性生成语言，第二项任务要求隐性演唱一首著名歌曲。隐性声乐演唱和语言的神经网络位置相近，其皮质重叠程度随歌唱专业知识而变化。非专业歌手在声乐演唱中表现出更大的语言网络参与度，这可能是他们音准较差的原因。相比之下，专业歌手表现出更单侧的激活模式，与右侧额叶参与度降低有关。研究结果表明，歌唱专业知识促进了与语言网络的独立性，解耦产生了更优美的音准。这意味着，通过改变歌唱与语言系统的耦合程度，寻找歌唱声音的古老歌唱实践可能在神经学上得到了体现。
