Pitch Perception Across Domains and Musical Rhythm Perception in Dutch Dyslexics

Abstract

Previous research has discovered that dyslexics are notably worse than non-dyslexics regarding pitch and rhythm processing in speech. However, whether pitch and rhythm processing in music domain are also impaired remain an issue of controversy. None of the research to date has combined both speech and non-speech pitch in one study, nor did the dyslexic subjects receive foreign language as the stimuli. Most of the studies tested mainly dyslexic children, yet only little is known concerning adult dyslexics' performance on musical and speech pitch perception. The present study used speech and non-speech pitch from both language and music domains, and musical rhythm to discover whether auditory perception was impaired in adult Dutch dyslexics. We suggest that pitch perception skills are not related to reading disability. For dyslexics, perceiving pitch with fast-changing elements (e.g. Chinese lexical tones) or with well-structured patters (e.g. music) is not problematic. Moreover, the dyslexics in our study performed as well as the controls in musical rhythm perception task, favoring the hypothesis that suggests dyslexics do have motor control deficit (e.g. rhythm production), but not in the processing of perception.