Talk:Amusia

Ability to read musical notation
The article states that inability to read a score is a symptom of amusia. Aside from lacking perfect pitch, I am quite musical - I can sing and play in tune with others, I can play most tunes by ear and distinguish different chord types. However, I am totally unable to 'read' music. I can process it intellectually and 'work it out' note by note, but I am totally unable to look at written music and convert even the simplest melody into a 'sound in my head'. I am not dyslexic (just a bad speller/typist). Is this an aspect of amusia or is something else at play. Is it possible to be musically dyslexic? Stub Mandrel (talk) 19:39, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

it doesn't JUST say "inability", though, it says "loss of ability". if you had learned to read musical notation & then lost that ability, that would be a possible amusia symptom. not ever having been able to read music is not itself a symptom.

I came to this page having read that chrissie hynde demonstrates amusia, but I don't see her listed amongst the great & the good in this article. what gives?

duncanrmi (talk) 23:03, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Relationship to Tone deafness?
How does this relate to Tone deafness? DavidRF 04:01, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Tone deafness is also called congenital amusia, but amusia is a more general neurological term for any kind of music processing impairment, while tone deafness is specific to pitch processing.
 * I will try to come back again with more references and beef this up a bit better. The dissociation between rhythm, melody and emotional processing is pretty clearly demonstrated at this point, but Sacks isn't the best reference for it.  He's not, honestly, a great reference for anything.  He's kind of fast and loose with his bibliography, but he does highlight some cool case studies that might be worth describing in this article.
 * --Hurtstotouchfire (talk) 01:23, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for raising this question. See the link to tone deafness under the section entitled Congenital Amusia; the definition of tone deafness as congenital amusia is properly cited. (Haworthk (talk) 20:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC))

Although you said that there is no known treatment to amusia, you touch upon tone differentiation techniques. It is interesting that you wrote that only children responded well - why is this? Can you go into any more detail about these techniques? For what reason did adults find it "annoying"? Lildevil3221 (talk) 01:43, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * After some research, I was unable to find anything that further explained this phenomenon. My best guess would be that, as children, all of their neurological connections have yet to form in their entirety. Being exposed to tone differentiation techniques early in their lives in dealing with their amusia could help them form better methods for coping at an early age. As adults, they are most likely easily frustrated by music in general, and being bombarded with large amounts of music while being told to change how they hear it could be quite difficult. Their neurological contacts are cemented in place and it is much more difficult for them to change the way they think about music. Aceintheh0l3 (talk) 21:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be good to include a picture of the brain with the areas responsible for pitch recognition. There is also a BBC link on the Science frontiers that talks about amusia, where a test for amusia is also included. You might want to include the link to that test in this page. I also think that it's important to include the role of Broca's area in processing musical sytax and the role of wernickes area in music perception. This is one of the articles that discussed the role of broca's area in music syntax, Nature Neuroscience 4, 540 - 545 (2001) doi:10.1038/87502. I'm sure there were other articles relating to it. Good luck!Kristaqkoci (talk) 28:08, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your suggestion. An image of the brain with highlighted areas related music perception has been uploaded to the neuroanatomy section. Hopefully that will help to visualize where some of the problems people with amusia are located. Also, a link to Delosis Research Technology musical listening test has been posted under external links. Here you can test your musical listening abilities. Thank you for the article on broca's area and wernike's area in relation to musical processing. The information from the article has been integrated into "The basics of music processing" seciton of our article. Thank you for your feedback!Daigleal (talk) 21:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for raising awareness to the involvement of Broca's Area in musical processing. We have made the appropriate adjustments to our page in the Basic Musical Processing section and have cited the source you suggested. However, we were unable to find adequate information concerning Wernicke's and its relevant connection to amusia. Thank you so much for your help! (Haworthk (talk) 23:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC))

Peer Reviews
You claim that there is no effective treatment to Amusia but is there any current research going on to help it? Plus, since there are no effective treatments, some must have been attempted. Perhaps going over a few of the treatments which failed and why they failed may give a good insight to the subject.
 * here is one that i found

The title "history" is a little misleading because when I first read it, i thought it was a history of the disease and how it progressed. It seems to be more of the history of research or discovery of the disease which could possibly be incorporated into the introduction or with further elaboration, become it's own section. Maybe renaming the section "discovery" could clarify initial confusion. Also, in "social and emotional impact," there seems only to be issues involving social problems and does not address emotional impact. Either addition of emotional impacts or changing the title to "social impacts" could be more appropriate. This is an interesting topic and you guys do a good job in addressing many points. keep up the good work!
 * Justindchien (talk) 01:20, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your suggestions. The history section of the article has been renamed "discovery". Hopefully that will clarify that the section does not discuss history of the disease, but an introduction to the history of research associated with amusia. The section below discovery discusses a case study of the first studied amusic patient if you were interested in a history of the disease. For your second comment, the section "social and emotional impact" does address emotional impacts people with amusia experience. They do not enjoy listening to music and avoid it when possible. The social and emotional impacts are related. It is the uncomfortable feeling amusic patients experience that can impact their involvement in social environments or social experiences. I hope that helps. Thank you. Daigleal (talk) 21:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Great job thus far. Just thought I'd make a suggestion to be added to your acquired amusia section. Although you state that "see symptoms of amusia as a result of trauma to the brain in locations which process musical elements or as a secondary symptom from the onset of disease or another disorder.", perhaps you could go into a little bit more detail on what other disorders may cause amusia as a secondary symptom. I found a pretty good article that goes into how epilepsy of the right hemisphere can result in expressive aprosody and amusia. Are these two conditions frequently linked? I noticed that aprosody was not one of the related diseases mentioned. Anyways, here is the information on the article I found :Epilepsia. 2003 Mar;44(3):466-7. Expressive aprosody and amusia as a manifestation of right hemisphere seizures.Bautista RE, Ciampetti MZ. Hope this helps! neurosoltisk (talk) 02:30, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the awesome article. I read it over and incorporated it into our article. The information it contained was extremely pertinent to our topic. Thanks again.Aceintheh0l3 :
 * (talk) 21:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I came across an article I thought would be a useful addition to the information already discussed on your page which addresses the association of amusia with deficits in spatial processing. According to this article, the processing of pitch in music depends on the same cognitive mechanisms used to process spatial information. You might want to consider incorporating some of the results found in this study to your page since it significantly identifies the possible mechanisms underlying this disorder and how it can be related to other deficits found in this region of the brain. I thought it would go well in the section where you discuss how amusia is related to aphasia. Here is the information on the article: Nature Neuroscience 10, 915–921 (1 July 2007). Amusia is associated with deficits in spatial processing. Katie M Douglas & David K Bilkey

bartond (talk) 23:19, 29 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the article. The information contained within it was extremely interesting and also very applicable to our symptoms section. it was incorporated there and is of great help to our article.Aceintheh0l3 (talk) 22:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I found your article to be very well written and detailed. I have a few suggestions which I think would clarify some aspects of the information. First, I think discussing more about diagnosis of amusia would be helpful. It is mentioned in the article that an MRI is used to determine which part of the brain is damaged to see which type of amusia a person might have, but what comes before or after that. What type of tests are people with suspected amusia asked to take? I have found an article which talks briefly about a test used to determine if a person has amusia. You might also find some of the other information useful. Here is the link to the article: http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/awp055v1 Secondly, I do agree with an earlier comment that maybe a picture showing which parts of the brain are affected in the different types of amusia. Lastly, I know you mention that amusia does not affect the brain except in regards to music but I was wondering if anyone had every done a study about amusia and certain aspects of intelligence. Since many studies have shown a correlation between proficiency in music and proficiency in mathematics, I was wondering if having amusia affected ones ability to do math, or any other type of academic skill. I think this would be something of interest to look into. Overall, I think the article was really good. It provided a lot of information in a clear way in which I think most people will be able to understand easily.

Msprockel (talk) 19:38, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much for the article. It proved to be extremely helpful in expanding our article, particularly with respect to the diagnosis of amusia (we added a whole new section!)
 * In response to your second idea (which was a similar criticism to others we received), we have no added a picture of the neuroanatomical areas of the brain associated with amusia.
 * In response to your third idea, we further researched the connection between amusia and intelligence, and made appropriate adjustments in the Symptoms section of the page. Thank you for raising this point. Also, while you propose an interesting question concerning the correlation between mathematics and amusia, we were unable to find sufficient studies supporting or refuting this claim. If you are interested in a similar effect, however, check out Music and Mathematics on Wikipedia.
 * Thanks again for your suggestions! (Haworthk (talk) 22:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC))

I really liked the section about related disease. I think it is very interesting to see how these other diseases like dyslexia and epilepsy can be related to amusia. But I would like to understand more about this link in the article. You stated that, “Research has been shown that amusia may be related to an increase in size of the cerebral cortex which may be a result of a malformation in cortical development. Diseases such as dyslexia and epilepsy are due to a malformation in cortical development and also lead to an increase in cortical thickness leads researchers to believe that congenital amusia may be caused by the identical phenomenon in a different area of the brain.” This is a little confusing. Does this mean that they are not actually linked together? If Amusia is related to cortical thickness in a different part of the brain than epilepsy or dyslexia what is there relationship other than similar brain structures and physical similarities? I think your article could be even better if this was built on a little. Good luck! (Neurodana (talk) 03:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC))
 * Thanks for your comment. In our research we were unable to find anything relating the diseases other than the fact that developmentally, there is abnormal cortical development which leads to the diseases mentioned above. Because they occur in different areas of the brain, the results they produce are not similar.Aceintheh0l3 (talk) 21:35, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

You guys have gotten off to a really good start with your article and have obviously have devoted alot of time to researching your topic and gaining a greater understanding. I really like your section on related diseases but I feel your best section is definitely the section that describes the various types of Amusia. My biggest complaint about your article thus far is that you discuss many different sections of the brain but it is hard to visualize these structures and their locations in the brain. Therefore you should try to add photos or diagrams that localize the sections of the brain that you refer to. I also believe that you guys should try to expand your article by trying to find information on current research and how scientists are trying to find a cure for this disease. Also I found a couple of articles that described the relation between spatial processing and amusia. Ive attached an article that refers to how the processing of a pitch depends on cognitive mechanisms that are used to process spacial representations in other modalities. I believe this might be a nice article to use to help describe the relation between spatial processing of pitch and the ability to process and sensory stimulus. Hope this helps! Good luck!

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v10/n7/abs/nn1925.html

Millerwy (talk) 04:17, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your feedback, and we are glad that you like our article. As mentioned above, we were able to add a picture to the neuroanatomy section that shows the different areas of the brain and how they are spatially related to one another. Secondly, we spent a great deal of time attempting to find current research and cures for the disease. We were unable to find anything that mentioned current research for cures because at the moment, scientists are still trying to determine the causes for the disease, and until that has been hashed out, finding a cure would be next to impossible. Finally, the article you gave was submitted above and was a great help to our article in relating amusia to spacial processing, a symptom we had not yet listed. Thanks for your help.

Aceintheh0l3 (talk) 22:37, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

2010
You people seem really dedicated and this subject is really interesting! I read two articles on aquired amusia, which seem to relate to what you wrote on some aspects, but not on others. I think those articles could add to or influence the section on acquired amusia (I wouldn't want to change your text without your approuval)It would be nice, I think to talk about this case IR which is different and yet similar to the subjects you are talking about...That way you could relate to more then one study in that section....which is only on one article.... Here they are:

(Music and emotion: perceptual determinants,immediacy,and isolation after brain damage)by Peretz, Gagnon & Bouchard http://www.brams.umontreal.ca/plab/publications/article/29

(Cortical deafness to dissonance)by Peretz, Blood, Penhune & Zatorre http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/124/5/928 -- 02:04, 24 February 2010 24.200.187.95

Charles Babbage?
Does this man need to be added to the list of sufferers? Along with Richard Feynman? Feynman loved to drum but claimed music was noise and bothersome. Babbage was tortured by (street) music. 80.101.162.155 (talk) 21:19, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I think it would be worth adding him to the list. Do you have a citation for where you found the information?Hipposandmangos (talk) 19:44, 12 February 2013 (UTC)Hipposandmangos

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"Tone deaf" redirect
I was surprised when tone deaf redirected me to the Congenital amusia section of this article. I would have WP:BOLDly changed the redirect to target this article as a whole for "Amusia is a musical disorder that appears mainly as a defect in processing pitch ...", but I see that a change in the section intro in this article would be needed as well, so I'm bringing it up here instead. I propose that this change be made here and in relevant redirect page (some of those identified here) Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:59, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

(added) Looking back at this after a couple of weeks and seeing no discussion, I've gone ahead and made the changes here and in the redirect. This source, cited in the section, does say that congenital amusia is commonly known as “tone deafness”, but I have a hard time seeing that as contesting use of the term to also refer to acquired amusia which, according to that article section, "shares the same characteristics as congenital amusia" and is "more common than congenital amusia". Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:13, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Tone Deafness doesn't redirect
"Tone deaf" and "tone-deaf" redirect to Amusia, but Tone Deafness does not. Someone should fix that; I don't know how.2600:6C50:800:2787:58C8:35DC:E4EA:3C24 (talk) 00:58, 31 May 2022 (UTC)