Abstract:

In language and music development, smaller elements combine into larger units, which eventually form hierarchical structures. Previous studies have found that listeners can segment continuous stream of speech and music into hierarchies and represent them in a hierarchical way. On the basis of perception, listeners can also integrate incoming language and music events into hierarchical structures to form a coherent understanding and ultimately complete the communication smoothly. Future studies should analyze the role of boundary clues in hierarchical structure perception, examine the influencing factors of integration processes at different time scales, and further explore the relationship between language and music hierarchical structure processing.

Key words: language, music, hierarchical structure, perception, integration