Amusia is the inability to recognize and reproduce music
Amousie is a German word from the Greek amousía , which can be translated as “lack of harmony.” That is the closest etymological antecedent of amusia , a term that in our language refers to the impossibility of distinguishing or reproducing musical rhythms or tones .
Inability to make music
Amusia encompasses various disorders linked to an inability to recognize music and its reproduction . Many times this problem is associated with errors in diction and writing.
Sometimes amusia is a consequence of a brain injury , which is why it is referred to as acquired amusia . There is also congenital (that is, innate) amusia .
Among the clinical manifestations of amusia are the lack of ability to sing, whistle or play instruments . It can also be expressed through an impediment to distinguishing tones .
One of the most famous cases of amusia was that of the French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). Due to a neurological disease , possibly derived from a traumatic brain injury he suffered in a traffic accident, Ravel lost his ability to write and play music in his later years (acquired amusia), although he kept other abilities intact and maintained his intellectual prowess.
Relationship with language
Taking advantage of MRI technology, it has been shown that people with amusia may have reduced tonal memory . This was verified by subjecting them to specific memory tests, both tonal and verbal; The professionals observed that activity in the right auditory cortex, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the inferior frontal gyrus decreased.
Although amusia makes it difficult to recognize variations in tone in songs, it does not prevent us from noticing slight differences in intonation typical of the language. In other words, it is possible that the problem lies in the processing and not in the detection of the sound.
In non-tonal languages , such as ours or English, intonation is not as affected as in the rest, of which Japanese and Mandarin stand out. In cases like the latter, a decrease is seen when it comes to recognizing and processing language, given that a small tonal inflection can have a significant impact on the meaning of words and phrases.
Diagnosis of amusia
To examine a person with some of the signs described above and diagnose amusia, certain requirements must be met, among which the following stand out: the person must have a normal IQ, must not have advanced knowledge of music, must have exposed to this field on a normal basis and should have no problems socializing.
In the 1980s, two specialists named Kalmus and Fry designed a test to detect this musical disorder. It is a set of twenty-six widely known songs , of which seventeen have certain intentional out of tune . If a participant misses at least three of these errors, then he or she is assumed to suffer from amusia. Initial tests showed results that pointed to a prevalence of 4.2 percent , a value that was respected at an academic level for many years in the study of congenital amusia.
Three or more test failures indicate the presence of amusia
genus of spiders
Amusia , on the other hand, is a genus of spiders that is part of the gnaphosid family group. These araneomorphic species (due to their chelicerae - mouthparts - which are arranged diagonally) live in different areas of the African continent.
Regarding the habitat of this genus of spiders, we can find them in the southern and eastern regions of the African continent. Amusia murina and Amusia cataracta are two species of this genus. Like all gnaphosids, they are dark and their rows are characterized by being long and tube-shaped.