# Music and Language in the Human Brain: Mismatch Negativity Evidence for Their Neuroplasticity and Interplay

## TL;DR

This paper explores how music and language affect the brain's auditory processing, using mismatch negativity to show how learning shapes neural responses.

## Contribution

The paper reviews evidence that both implicit and explicit auditory learning modulate preattentive neural encoding of sounds.

## Key findings

- Implicit and explicit auditory expertise modulate neural encoding of sounds at the preattentive level.
- MMN parameters like latency and amplitude reflect auditory learning across the lifespan.
- Some findings challenge traditional views on brain hemisphere specialization for music and language.

## Abstract

We live in an auditory world; we perceive and memorize sounds even before birth. Here, I have reviewed findings on the effects of implicit and explicit learning on auditory neurocognition. These findings, investigated in the mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm, indicate that both implicit and explicit auditory expertise can modulate the neural encoding of sounds at the preattentive level of human cognition. This modulation is reflected in the MMN parameters latency and amplitude and its generators. Thus, studies on MMN can illustrate various forms of human auditory learning during development and learning across the entire lifespan.

While several empirical findings and influential theories promote the importance of the left auditory cortex in language encoding and the corresponding areas in the right hemisphere in music encoding, there are also some intriguing findings opposing these views. Some of those originate from the literature reviewed and discussed in this paper.