Neurocognitive Bases of Music Reading

The way in which musicians read musical notation and shortly execute at first glance sophisticated movements characterized by precise timing, pitch, agogic, trajectories, fingerings, etc., sometimes transposing from one key to another represents one of the most complex and fascinating abilities of the human brain. Reading music has some similarities with reading words: e.g., it takes many years of practice and exercise to acquire speed and accuracy, and both orthographic characters and notation are first visually recognized and thereafter "semantically" converted into gestures. However, the diversities are many, the meanings are not lexical but motor and musical ones, the strategy of spatial analysis of symbols (both local and global) are different, the mechanisms of literacy are different, as well as the role of eye movements, predictive mechanisms and hemispheric involvement. The time of a comprehensive research topic addressing the psychological and neuroscientific underpinnings of music reading ability has come.

While the ability to read letters and words has been deeply investigated, the neural mechanism subserving music reading is currently poorly understood. It seems that it partially involves common brain areas, including portions of the VWFA, while also extending to contralateral right-sided areas. Many questions are still open and unexplored, and this special issue will attempt to contribute systematically to their investigation. What are the variables that most influence our ability to read notes? What are the most effective pedagogical methods and what are the neural circuits on which they act plastically? Is there a critical age for notation learning? Does the ability to read music positively affect the ability to read words? Is this why music education is a protective and rehabilitative factor for dyslexia? Does music dyslexia exist and why is it rarer than language dyslexia? What is the role of eye movements and motor preparation in note reading? Does intensive note reading stimulate V5 by promoting word-reading ability? Among the topics treated will be: solfeggio, first-sight reading, hand-eye delay, ocular movements, motor preparation, hemispheric lateralization, visual note form area, visuo-motor transformation, music fingering. This research topic will provide a platform for joint discussion among researchers and neuroscientists from different research approaches to facilitate knowledge exchange and advancement.

We are interested in empirical research, reviews or meta-analyses covering the whole spectrum of investigations in the field of Neuroscience of music, Psychology of music, Musicology, Music perception, Music science and Cognitive neuroscience of Music, featuring behavioral, psychological, performance-based, as well as neuroimaging (EEG/ERP, TMS, PET and fMRI, connectivity and DTI), genetic, and clinical studies on psychiatric and neurological patients. The studies might include investigations on patients affected by music alexia and dyslexia, music agnosia or amusia, synesthesia, and language dyslexia. Investigations might be carried out in healthy or pathological groups (e.g. dyslexic readers) as well as in professional musicians, music students of all ages and degrees of expertise, naïve controls, and non-musicians. The studies might also consider the effect of individual differences on music reading, such as those due to different ages, expertise, instrument played, lateral preferences (right-handers vs. left-handers), sex, and absolute pitch ability. Papers might also deal with the development of new technologies for music reading (e.g., automated page-turner systems), from the ergonomic perspective.