Syntactic processing in language and music: Different cognitive operations, similar neural resources?

Does the processing of structural relations in music have anything in commo n with the syntactic processing of language? Important differences in the f orm, purpose, and use of syntactic structures in the two domains suggest th at the answer should be "no." However, recent event-related brain potential (ERP) data suggest that some aspect of syntactic processing is shared betw een domains. These considerations lead to a novel hypothesis that linguisti c and musical syntactic processing engage different cognitive operations, b ut rely on a common set of neural resources for processes of structural int egration in working memory ("shared structural integration resource" hypoth esis). This hypothesis yields a nonintuitive prediction about musical proce ssing in aphasic persons, namely, that high- and low-comprehending agrammat ic Broca's aphasics should differ in their musical syntactic processing abi lities. This hypothesis suggests how comparison of linguistic and musical s yntactic processing can be a useful tool for the study of processing specif icity ("modularity") in cognitive neuroscience.