Victoria Lei, Associate Professor, member of UM’s Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, council member of the International Federation of Translators, is a literary historian, translator and conference interpreter. She obtained her PhD in English Literature from the University of Glasgow, UK and is a life member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. An active conference interpreter for two decades, her interpreting practice and teaching have led her to focus her research on cognition and interpreting in recent years, and it is her quest to bridge the gap between empirical research, interpreting practice and the classroom. She explores innovative approaches to translation and interpreting process research using technologies including corpus, eye tracking, keylogging, functional near-infrared spectroscopy and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Her current research interest includes brain activation associated with language processing and music processing, interaction and coordination of cognitive efforts in simultaneous interpreting, and the interaction between professional conference interpreters and their environment.

Exploring the interplay between language and music: an pilot study

The relationship between language and music has been the topic of debate among thinkers since antiquity. However, the exploration of the music-language relation from the perspective of modern cognitive science only started in the 21st century. Patel (2010) challenges the traditional belief that language and music are processed independently – the music functions mainly localized in the right hemisphere of the brain and language functions in the left hemisphere. Recent studies using neuroimaging technologies like ERP, PET and fMRI have found commonalities as well as differences in neural representations of language processing and musical processing. However, there is still no firm answer to the neural location of the shared resource networks for language and music.
fMRI, with its high spatial resolution, is an excellent tool for locating brain activities. However, the use of fMRI in neurocognitive investigation of language and music is limited due to various constrains of the technology, e.g. the noise generated by the scanner and its intolerance of head motion. The interdisciplinary team at UM has found feasible solutions to the problems, making it possible to conduct experiments involving listening, speaking, singing and playing musical instrument in the scanner. Furthermore, with the more advanced surface-based analysis, we are in a good position of accurately locating the regions associated with music and language processing and confirming to what extent the neural representations of language and music overlap.
Findings of the study may shed light on the origins and evolution of language, as well as having implications on practical questions such as whether training in music have impact on language development, including bilingual/multilingual development, and vice versa; and whether the neuroprotective benefits of music are associated with the modes of language processing that require extreme cognitive control.