Patel Aniruddh D
Department of Theoretical Neurobiology, The Neurosciences Institute San Diego, CA, USA.
Front Psychol. 2011 Jun 29;2:142. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00142. eCollection 2011.
Mounting evidence suggests that musical training benefits the neural encoding of speech. This paper offers a hypothesis specifying why such benefits occur. The "OPERA" hypothesis proposes that such benefits are driven by adaptive plasticity in speech-processing networks, and that this plasticity occurs when five conditions are met. These are: (1) Overlap: there is anatomical overlap in the brain networks that process an acoustic feature used in both music and speech (e.g., waveform periodicity, amplitude envelope), (2) Precision: music places higher demands on these shared networks than does speech, in terms of the precision of processing, (3) Emotion: the musical activities that engage this network elicit strong positive emotion, (4) Repetition: the musical activities that engage this network are frequently repeated, and (5) Attention: the musical activities that engage this network are associated with focused attention. According to the OPERA hypothesis, when these conditions are met neural plasticity drives the networks in question to function with higher precision than needed for ordinary speech communication. Yet since speech shares these networks with music, speech processing benefits. The OPERA hypothesis is used to account for the observed superior subcortical encoding of speech in musically trained individuals, and to suggest mechanisms by which musical training might improve linguistic reading abilities.
越来越多的证据表明，音乐训练有益于言语的神经编码。本文提出了一个假设，具体说明为何会出现这种益处。“OPERA”假设提出，这种益处是由言语处理网络中的适应性可塑性驱动的，并且当满足五个条件时就会出现这种可塑性。这五个条件是：（1）重叠：在处理音乐和言语中都使用的声学特征（例如，波形周期性、幅度包络）的脑网络中存在解剖学重叠；（2）精确性：就处理的精确性而言，音乐对这些共享网络的要求高于言语；（3）情感：参与该网络的音乐活动会引发强烈的积极情绪；（4）重复：参与该网络的音乐活动经常重复；（5）注意力：参与该网络的音乐活动与集中注意力相关。根据OPERA假设，当满足这些条件时，神经可塑性会驱动相关网络以比普通言语交流所需更高的精度运行。然而，由于言语与音乐共享这些网络，言语处理也会受益。OPERA假设被用来解释在接受过音乐训练的个体中观察到的言语在皮层下编码方面的优势，并提出音乐训练可能改善语言阅读能力的机制。
