Emotion processing in congenital amusia: the deficits do not generalize to written emotion words

There is something to be said for academic article titles that give you the bottom line. In this case, the bottom line is that, as a congenital amusic, I am probably better able to convey my emotions in written words than a face-to-face conversation. (This makes a lot of sense to me when I think of all those poems I wrote to girls when I was a teenager.)

FYI, an amusic is a person who has amusia, which is "a musical disorder that appears mainly as a defect in processing pitch but also encompasses musical memory and recognition" — Wikipedia. You may also see the word amusiac used for a person with amusia.

So here is more of what the article abstract says: "Results showed that participants with amusia preformed significantly less accurately than controls in emotion prosody recognition; in contrast, the two groups showed no significant difference in accuracy rates in both written word tasks (emotion recognition and valence judgment)." 

So, while my amusia turned many music lessons at school into a form of torture, I was still able to win the school prize in English (twice). Also, and this is true, I once aced a test in Music class because it was an essay question that involved describing orchestral sounds.

The abstract continues: "The results indicate that the impairment of individuals with amusia in emotion processing may not generalize to linguistic emotion processing in written words, implying that the emotion deficit is likely to be restricted to socio-emotional contexts in individuals with amusia."

The abstract is here, but sadly the full article is not (access costs forty quid, even if you suffer from the [allegedly] rare condition being researched).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's amusing about amusia?

Image
Welcome to 4Amusia.com , a place to find out more about something called amusia, a condition that can make it impossible to carry a tune or learn to play a musical instrument. Widespread ignorance of this condition—commonly referred to in derogatory terms like tone deafness or tin ears—can lead to social and emotional problems for those who have it. I know, because I have amusia. Amusia is defined as: "a musical disorder that appears mainly as a defect in processing pitch but also encompasses musical memory and recognition" ( Wikipedia ). Some studies suggest that as many as 4% of people are born with an innate inability to recognize musical tones or to reproduce them. This is referred to as congenital amusia. In 2018, I discovered that my lifelong failure to sing or learn guitar—despite great effort—was due to congenital amusia, not some weird character defect (although you can still find music coaches who insist that amusiacs are just being lazy). When time permits, I pl
Read more

Being tone deaf is not a choice, it's a disability

Image
The main purpose of this blog post is to introduce people to an excellent piece of amusia research titled: Effects of vocal training in a musicophile with congenital amusia . If you want to dive right into it, here is a link to  the article as a PDF file . If you want a little more context, please read the following. The Scenarios of Johnny and Barry Many people may be familiar with this scenario: Johnny is having trouble learning to read. His teachers say he must try harder, but however hard Johnny tries, he still has trouble reading. Rumors spread that Johnny is lazy, or stupid, or both.  Then someone realizes Johnny has Congenital Word Blindness, better known as dyslexia, which these days is a widely-acknowledged learning disorder. In many progressive communities that diagnosis opens the door to sympathy, understanding, and resources developed to help Johnny deal with his disability (in the UK, dyslexia is classed as a disability under the Equality Act of 2010). Here's anothe
Read more

Amusia testing: a detailed analysis

Image
Some serious work on testing for amusia is covered in this long-but-worth-reading academic article: Revising the diagnosis of congenital amusia with the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia . I am now looking at getting myself "lab-tested."  There are several ongoing amusia-related studies in the UK so I may be able to find a lab test opportunity via one of these. While I tested "positive" for amusia on several online tests, the article cited above suggests that lab testing may be more accurate. Plus, it appears there a different flavours of amusia, so to speak. I am particularly interested in knowing if my sense of rhythm is normal or not (I think I have a good sense of rhythm, but my partner has suggested that march to "the beat of a different drum"). One of the ways in which learning about congenital amusia has helped me is the notion that difficulty in following a tune is due to memory issues. This helps me understand my feeling that I can follow a
Read more