2 Musical perception skills in Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum

Abstract

Objective:

Agenesis of the corpus callosum(AgCC) is a disorder in which the connection between the two brain hemispheres is congenitally absent. Previous research has suggested that the auditory system can be affected in individuals with AgCC (Demopoulos et al., 2015). However, the nature of AgCC’s effect on musical perception skills is unclear. This study investigated the impact of AgCC on the music perception skills in high-functioining adults using a brief version of the Profile of Music Perception Skills (PROMS; Zentner, M. & Strauß, H. 2017). It was hypothesized that individuals with AgCC would have diminished music perception abilities when compared to a neurotypical control group.

Participants and Methods:

Participants included 10 high-functioning adults with AgCC that had an intelligence quotation within the normal range (FSIQ>80) and 63 neurotypical controls who were recruited via Cloud Research. During the PROMS the participants were asked to listen to two different sound excerpts after which they were asked whether the second sound was the same or different from the first (correct answers= 2 points, uncertain answers= 1 point, and remaining answers not coded). The participants answered questions in four different areas of musical perception: Melody, Tuning, Accent, and Tempo.

Results:

Results indicated that there was not a significant difference between the control group and the AgCC participants on music perception skills on the overall PROMS scores F(1,72)= .365, P-value= .548. Tested individually, none of the 4 individual domains showed a significant difference: Melody F(1,72)=2.67, P-value= .107; Tuning F(1,72)= .271, P-value= .606; Accent F(1,72)= .017, P-value= .897; or Tempo F(1,72)=.106, P-value= .746.

Conclusions:

Contrary to the hypothesis of this study, the results showed that the participants with AgCC did not perform significantly differently in the PROMS total score when compared to neurotypical controls, nor were there significant differences in any of the four of the subtests (Melody, Tuning, Accent, and Tempo). Thus these high-functioning individuals with AgCC did not have deficient music perception abilities. These findings demonstrate that although the auditory system may be affected in some individuals with AgCC, we do not see differences in musical perception skills in high-functioning individuals with AgCC.