It is unclear how music training leads to superior memory of language. In the present study, we investigated whether musically trained adults (musicians) have superior segmental and tonal loops using non-musical Mandarin stimuli. Forty-three musicians and thirty-nine demographically matched non-musically trained adults (non-musicians) participated in this study, all native Chinese. Memory spans, typical indicators of capacity of the phonological loop, were measured in both visual and auditory modalities in the following three conditions: (1) a segmental condition, defined as different syllables with the same high level tone; (2) a tonal condition (suprasegmental condition), defined as the same syllable with different tones; and (3) a mixed condition, defined as different syllables with different tones. The results revealed a main effect of condition. Memory spans of the tonal conditions were significantly smaller than those of segmental and mixed conditions, regardless of group and modality. Moreover, a significant condition by group interaction was found. Musicians outperformed non-musicians in the tonal conditions, but not in the segmental or mixed conditions in both modalities. These findings suggest that there are tonal and segmental loops for Mandarin, and musicians, compared to controls, have larger memory spans for Mandarin tones but not segments.
The questions whether and how empathy for pain can be modulated by acute alcohol intoxication in the non-dependent population remain unanswered. To address these questions, a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject study design was adopted in this study, in which healthy social drinkers were asked to complete a pain-judgment task using pictures depicting others' body parts in painful or non-painful situations during fMRI scanning, either under the influence of alcohol intoxication or placebo conditions. Empathic neural activity for pain was reduced by alcohol intoxication only in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). More interestingly, we observed that empathic neural activity for pain in the right anterior insula (rAI) was significantly correlated with trait empathy only after alcohol intoxication, along with impaired functional connectivity between the rAI and the fronto-parietal attention network. Our results reveal that alcohol intoxication not only inhibits empathic neural responses for pain but also leads to trait empathy inflation, possibly via impaired top-down attentional control. These findings help to explain the neural mechanism underlying alcohol-related social problems.
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