As music and language are unique human traits, it is not surprising that many philosophers, writers, biologists, psychologists and other scientists have thought about the comparison between music and language. Interestingly, the language-music comparison has received renewed interest over the last 20 years, with the recent development of research techniques. In this review, we will firstly show the findings of the more recent psychological studies that have focused on music and language, from evolutionary, cognitive, and developmental perspectives. Then, we will refer to some cognitive processing models about music and language functions, which are based on the results of neuro-scientific studies. Finally, the prospects on future research will be discussed.

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[in Japanese]

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