BOUNDARIES OF SEPARABILITY BETWEEN MELODY AND RHYTHM IN MUSIC DISCRIMINATION - A NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

The detailed study of a patient who suffered from a severe amelodia wi thout arhythmia as a consequence of bilateral temporal lobe damage rev ealed that the processing of melodic information is at least partially separable from the processing of rhythmic information. This dissociat ion was replicated across different sets of material, was supported by the presence of a reversed association, and was maintained in conditi ons that promote integration in the normal brain. These results argue against the view that melody and rhythm are treated as a unified dimen sion throughout processing. At the same time, they support the view th at integration takes place after early separation of the two dimension s.