362 Review TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.

8 August 2003

What is specific to music processing?

Insights from congenital amusia
Isabelle Peretz and Krista L. Hyde
Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, C.P. 6128 succ. Centre-ville, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3C 3J7

Musical abilities are generally regarded as an evolution- consonant intervals better than dissonant intervals [5]
ary by-product of more important functions, such as and exhibit learning preferences for musical scales with
those involved in language. However, there is increas- unequal steps [6]. The latter sensitivity bias does not seem
ing evidence that humans are born with musical to arise from exposure to ambient music because infants
predispositions that develop spontaneously into soph- detect mistunings to invented musical scales, when these
isticated knowledge bases and procedures that are are built with unequal steps. This property of scales is
unique to music. Recent findings also suggest that the universal [7] and promotes the organization of pitches
brain is equipped with music-specific neural networks around a central tone [8]. Hence, infants are perceptually
and that these can be selectively compromised by a equipped for assimilating the music pitch structure of any
congenital anomaly. This results in a disorder, congeni- culture. On the time dimension, infants prefer music that
tal amusia, that appears to be limited to the processing is subject to an isochronous temporal pulse. Just as adults,
of music. Recent evidence points to fine-grained percep- four-month-old infants are biased toward perceiving
tion of pitch as the root of musical handicap. Hence, regularity, in exhibiting sensitivity to slight disruptions
musical abilities appear to depend crucially on the fine- of it [9]. The fact that these perceptual skills appear
tuning of pitch, in much the same way that language precociously, with no obvious function in language, point to
abilities rely on fine time resolution. the existence of music-specific predispositions [10].

Music, as language, is a universal human trait. Through- Core musical knowledge bases and processes
out human history and across all cultures, individuals With prolonged exposure, the ordinary listener becomes a
have produced and enjoyed music [1]. Despite its ubiquity, kind of musical expert, although s/he is unaware of this.
music is rarely studied as a basic and distinct cognitive For example, non-musicians are as sensitive as musicians
faculty. Musical abilities are generally regarded to be to subtle aspects of music harmony, by processing chords
assembled from processors that were not originally that are harmonically related to a chord context better
designed for this purpose [2]. This is in part owing to the than less related chords [11]. Musical training or explicit
fact that music has no obvious utility [3,4]. The other major learning of music theory appears unnecessary to acquire
reason is that only a select few individuals seem to achieve sophisticated knowledge of the syntax-like relationships
a level of music proficiency. among tones, chords and keys [12,13]. This is a recent
However, recent evidence suggests that music might discovery. Early research in music cognition has mostly
well be distinct from other cognitive functions, in being focused on musically trained individuals (e.g. see [14]).
subserved by specialized neural networks, under the Current research is no longer elitist and has been
guidance of innate mechanisms. Accordingly, any given conducted, with musicians and non-musicians alike, on
individual would be born with the potential to become aspects of musical structure, other than those related to
musically proficient. The goal of the present review is to pitch structure [15]. There is no need to cover all of these
identify this potential and to assess its specificity for aspects here, as music-specificity might be rooted in only a
music. To this aim, the relevant evidence emanating from few processing components underlying the development of
developmental, cognitive and neuropsychological studies musical competence. As infant studies suggest, these
will be summarized, with special attention to the rare likely anchorage points are the encoding of pitch along
individuals who appear to be born unmusical. musical scales and the ascribing of a regular pulse to
incoming events. Both aspects are essential to the
Musical predispositions hierarchical organization of music, which in turn facili-
Neurologically intact individuals appear to be born tates perception, memory and performance by creating
musical. Before one year of age, the pre-linguistic infant expectancies [13,16]. Both aspects are also likely to be
displays remarkable musical abilities that are similar, in specialized for music processing, although the issue
many respects, to those of adults. Just as mature listeners, remains to be settled for temporal processes. By
infants display sensitivity to musical scales and to contrast, the processes mediating pitch (tonal) hier-
temporal regularity. Six to 9-month-old infants process archies can be viewed as unique to music, hence as the
‘germ around which a musical faculty could have
Corresponding author: Isabelle Peretz ([email protected]). evolved’ ([17], p. 257).
http://tics.trends.com 1364-6613/03/$ - see front matter q 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00150-5
 Review TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.8 August 2003 363

In music, pitch variations generate a determinate scale, language domain, such cases, often termed Specific
whereas speech intonation contours do not usually elicit Language Impairments (SLI), have been identified for
such effects [8]. Moreover, as mentioned previously, the use quite some time, and a large research effort has been
of scales is universal and makes use of unequal-spaced undertaken to understand the origin and varieties of these
pitches that are organized around 5 to 7 focal pitches [7,18]. disorders. Some researchers claim that language impair-
Scale tones are not equivalent and are organized around a ments arise from failures specific to language processing
central tone, called the tonic. Usually, a piece starts and [33]. Others hold that language deficiencies result from a
ends on the tonic. Among the other scale tones, there is a more elemental problem that results in individuals being
hierarchy of importance or stability. The non-scale tones unable to perceive fine acoustic temporal changes [34].
are the least related and often sound anomalous. This The possibility that certain individuals may be born
implicit tonal knowledge allows any given individual to with a specific deficit for music processing has been
detect when a musician strikes a wrong note, for example. entertained for more than a century [35,36]. This condition
This widespread ability may, however, be lost or compro- has been variously called tone-deafness, dysmusia and
mised as a consequence of brain damage. dysmelodia. However, the term ‘congenital amusia’ seems
preferable to acknowledge the possibility that there exist
Music-specific neural networks as many forms of congenital amusias as they are forms of
Brain damage can disrupt the normal intervention of tonal acquired amusias [37]. Congenital amusia refers to the
knowledge in melodic processing, while sparing perception observation of musical failures that cannot be explained by
of pitch distances and directions [19]. In such a case, the obvious sensory or brain anomalies, low intelligence nor
patient can no longer differentiate tonal from atonal lack of environmental stimulation to music. Notorious
music, nor determine whether an out-of-scale pitch fits a examples are Che Guevara (the highly educated revolu-
melodic context. The reverse situation can also occur. tionary) and Milton Friedman (Nobel Prize in Economics),
Brain lesions can impair pitch discrimination abilities and who reported life-long musical handicaps despite having
maintain the ability to generate expectancies based on taken music lessons in childhood [38,39]. However, much
tonal context [20]. Thus, the processes that mediate tonal early evidence rests on anecdotal case descriptions.
perception of pitch appear to be subserved by a separable In an attempt to quantify this disorder and to measure
neural substrate that can be selectively impaired or spared its prevalence, Kalmus and Fry [40] administered a test
by brain damage. Recent data obtained with functional that required the detection of anomalous pitches inserted
neuroimaging point to the rostromedial prefrontal cortex in popular melodies to more than 600 participants in the
as the likely host for this tonal network [21]. UK. Approximately 4% of these subjects performed as
The existence of music-specific neural networks is not poorly as 20 self-declared amusic individuals. Since then, a
limited to the tonal encoding of pitch. Other distinct neural similar estimate (5%), based on the low tail of the normal
networks have been identified for music memories [22] and score distribution has been obtained in the USA with a
for singing [23,24]. Among these, the networks that similar test (Drayna, pers. commun.). While these esti-
contribute to music recognition are of most relevance mates are based upon performance on a single measure of
here because their specificity is well documented. Indeed, musical ability, which may have poor validity, they are
brain-damaged patients may suffer from recognition fail- interesting for two reasons. First, they are consistent with
ures that affect the musical domain exclusively [25– 29]. the prevalence of other domain-specific disabilities, such
Such patients can no longer recognize melodies (presented as SLI (7% [41]). Second, the estimates have been obtained
without words) that were highly familiar to them before with a test that has been recently shown to tap a
brain damage. By contrast, they are normal at recognizing genetically transmitted ability. The anomalous pitch
spoken lyrics (and spoken words, in general), familiar detection test has been completed by 136 identical
voices and other environmental sounds (such as animal (monozygotic) twins and 148 fraternal (dizygotic) twins.
cries, traffic noises, and human vocal sounds). This Genetic model-fitting indicates that the influence of
condition is termed acquired music agnosia. Conversely, shared genes is more important than shared environ-
isolated sparing of music may also be observed after brain ments, with a heritability of 70 – 80% [42]. This suggests
damage. Non-musicians may lose their ability to recognize that the 4 to 5% of the general population that is amusic
spoken words and yet remain able to recognize music [30,31]. may suffer from a genetically determined defect in
The existence of such cases of selective impairment and perceiving pitch structure in music.
sparing of musical abilities is incompatible with any claim This hypothesis has been largely confirmed in a recent
that there is a single processing system responsible for the effort to document the presence and nature of the disorder in
recognition of speech and music. Rather, the evidence adults reporting a lifelong disability for music [37,43,44]. All
points to the existence of at least two distinct processing amusics lacked basic musical abilities on objective and
modules: one for music and one for speech [32]. detailed testing (see Box 1). For example, they are unable
to recognize or hum a familiar tune, despite normal
Congenital amusia as a music-specific disorder audiometry and above average intellectual, memory and
The fact that music processing appears to be associated language skills. They also showed little sensitivity to the
with distinct neural networks entails that music-specific presence of obvious dissonant chords in classical music
impairments should not only occur in the event of brain [43], a sensitivity that is normally present in infants [45].
damage (acquired amusia), but may also occur as a result Most notably, in line with previous work [40], the pitch-
of a congenital anomaly (congenital amusia). In the based deficit is most distinctive when amusics are required
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364 Review TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.8 August 2003

Box 1. Identification and selection criteria for congenital (a)

300
amusia
(1244Hz)
The educational system does not screen for musical disabilities or,
worse, does not even consider that this sort of deficit might exist,

Pitch in cents (Hz)

targeting lack of musical education or lack of effort as the source of
the problem [53]. To identify individuals with congenital amusia, one
can either conduct large survey studies (as in [40]), or adopt the
1046Hz Time (ms)
methods of cognitive neuropsychology, by conducting multiple case
studies that allow in depth analysis of the deficits. As the latter
350 ms
approach is more desirable at this early research stage, a systematic
search for self-reported amusics was conducted by way of adver-
tisements in the media. Reports varied greatly, from an inability to
read musical scores (i.e. a form of musical developmental dyslexia
300
[54]), to an aversion for music. In line with previous studies [35,36],
(848Hz)
only individuals who attested to be unable to recognize tunes
(without the help of lyrics), nor to detect when they sang out of tune
(but were told by others), were selected. Furthermore, to rule out lack (b) ** * *
of educational opportunities, only volunteers who had achieved a
100
solid level of education and reported unsuccessful attempts at 80

Hits – FA (%)
mastering music, despite having had musical lessons during child-
hood, were thoroughly evaluated [37,43,44]. 60
The selected individuals were initially evaluated with the Montreal
Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA), which has been effective in 40 P**<0.001
diagnosing musical disorders in large groups of brain-damaged P*<0.05
patients of various etiologies [55,56]. The battery includes six tests 20
which assess the different components that are known to be involved
0
in melody processing of Western tonal music, namely pitch contour, 25 50 100 200 300
musical scales, pitch intervals, rhythm, metre and memory. Self- (15) (30) (62) (128) (198)
declared amusic individuals whose global score (averaged across
the six tests) lies two standard deviations below the mean of normal Pitch change in cents (Hz)
controls are considered as confirmed cases. This amounts to , 90%
(24 out of 27) of the self-declared amusic volunteers tested to date. (c) 100
Their subjective complaints were also confirmed by way of further
testing, probing their memory and recognition abilities for music and 80
Hits – FA (%)

nonmusical auditory events [37,43,44]. Indeed, congenital amusic

subjects failed to recognize well-known tunes as compared with 60
normal controls. Yet they easily recognized the songs, from which
40
the tunes were taken, when hearing the spoken lyrics. Moreover,
under identical testing conditions, the amusics showed no difficulty 20
in recognizing and memorizing common environmental sounds and
in recognizing the voices of famous people. Thus, amusics do not 0
seem to suffer from a general auditory attentional or learning 8 10 12 14 16
disorder; their disorder is limited to music. (28) (35) (42) (49) (56)
Time change as % ITI (ms)

to detect ‘a wrong note’ (a note not in the scale) in a TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences
conventional melody [37,43,44]. The test was found to be
diagnostic as there was no overlap between the distri- Fig. 1. Psychoacoustic tests of pitch and time discrimination in sequences. Ten
amusic and 10 control adults were presented with 360 sequences, each comprising
butions of the amusics’ and controls’ scores. The results five tones. (a) When a sequence differed from monotony (same pitch) or isochrony
could not be attributed to a memory failure, because the (same time), its fourth tone was altered. In the pitch-altered sequences, the fourth
melodies were unfamiliar. Rather, what amusics seem to tone was displaced upwards or downwards by one of five pitch distances (dotted
vertical arows), ranging from 25 to 300 cents (where 100 cents corresponds to 1
be lacking is the knowledge and procedures required for semitone). In the time-altered sequences, the fourth tone was displaced from its
mapping pitches onto musical scales. Thus, amusics seem isochronous position (horizontal arrows), occurring earlier or later by one of five
to lack a pitch-processing component that is unique to temporal increments that ranged from 8 to 16% of the 350 ms inter-tone onset.
(b,c) The scores of amusics (green circles) and controls (blue triangles) are rep-
music, for which infants seem to be predisposed, and which resented in mean percentage of hits (‘yes’ responses to an altered sequence)
appears to be genetically transmittable [42]. minus false alarms (‘yes’ responses to the non-altered sequence) in the pitch con-
dition (b) and in the time condition (c). Error bars represent mean standard error.
Adapted with permission from Ref. [44].
Congenital amusia, as an acoustical disorder of fine-pitch
discrimination steps between consecutive notes of 1 or 2 semitones
Nonetheless, the musical deficit might arise from a more (corresponding to 1 or 2 adjacent keys on a keyboard).
elemental problem. This possibility was suggested by the Western melodies are constructed with such small pitch
discovery of a severe deficit in acoustic pitch perception in distances; 70% are 0 (repeated pitches), 1, or 2 semitones in
the first documented cases of congenital amusia [35,37], size [46]. Similar pitch size distributions are observed
which in turn may account for the emergence of a lifelong across musical styles and cultures [47]. Thus, a perceptual
musical impairment. Poor pitch perception may prevent system that is unable to detect small pitch changes is
the normal internalization of musical scales that have bound to miss an essential part of musical structure.
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 Review TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.8 August 2003 365

The presence of such a basic pitch discrimination deficit

has been confirmed in each amusic subject tested so far (a)
([44], Foxton, unpublished) for both isolated tones and tone 500 B4

Musical pitch names

sequences. Amusics were impaired in detecting a small

Frequency (Hz)
375 ? F#4
pitch deviation in monotonic and isochronous sequences,
whereas they performed as controls in detecting a slight
250 B3
time deviation in the same context (see Fig. 1). Thus,
amusics’ poor pitch perception cannot be ascribed to .
125 B2
She for- got her book
nonspecific problems with the task, nor to poor hearing
in general. Rather, the data point to the presence of a
0 0.5 1.0 1.2
congenital anomaly that selectively impairs sequential
Time(s)
pitch processing. (b)
In addition to being specific to pitch, the deficit is also 500 B4
fine-grained and includes the critical semitone distance.

Musical pitch names

Frequency (Hz)
Because the problem is revealed in the context of a single 375 F#4
repeating tone, the same defect is likely to be greatly
amplified when additional uncertainty is added, such as in 250 B3
Ha- ppy Birth- day to you---
a musical context. Given that amusics are probably born
125 B2
with this deficit – normal infants’ pitch acuity lies in the
order of half a semitone [48] – they have probably never
assimilated the structure of musical scales nor acquired 0 1.0 2.0 2.3
the sophisticated tonal knowledge that every normally Time(s)
developing individual implicitly builds on scales. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences
One major implication of these findings is that fine-
grained pitch perception appears essential for the normal Fig. 2. Pitch variations in speaking and singing. (a) The fundamental frequency (F0)
of the sentence ‘She forgot her book’ with the intonation pattern of a question (?)
development of musical abilities. A corollary proposal is and a statement (.). (b) The same analysis of the song ‘Happy Birthday’. Both rendi-
that precocious, enhanced pitch acuity may predispose tions were spoken and sung naturally by a female English speaker and analysed
with Praat software (www.praat.org). The final pitch rise and fall in (a) are typical
individuals to superior musical skills or talent. These of the English and French language, with a range spanning more than 12 semi-
conditions have been recently met in autism ([49] see tones [50]. The significantly smaller pitch variations in singing (b) is typical of
Box 2). music, ranging mostly from 0 to 2 semitones [46,47].

languages. In non-tonal languages, the most easily

The pitch defect spares speech intonation measurable use of linguistic pitch lies in the final pitch
The importance of pitch for the musical domain is
rise that is indicative of a question. Yet, these variations in
obvious. However, pitch also contributes to speech com-
pitch intonation are well perceived by congenital amusic
munication. Over half the languages of the world use pitch
individuals [43]. This is because pitch variations in speech
to alter the meaning of words. Such languages (e.g.
[50] are very coarse compared with those used in music
Mandarin, Thai and Vietnamese) are known as tonal
(Fig. 2). Hence, a deficient pitch perception system might
compromise music perception exclusively, not because it is
Box 2. Musical proficiency and enhanced pitch abilities in specialized for that domain, but because music require-
autism ments are more fine-grained. Accordingly, the disorder
Musical abilities, and pitch processing in particular, are remarkable experienced by congenital amusic individuals may not be
traits of individuals afflicted with autism, a neuro-developmental music-specific, but merely music-relevant.
disorder characterized by impaired social and communicative
development [57]. Certain autistic individuals, known as ‘savant’ Conclusion
musicians, exhibit high proficiency in musical abilities, including
creativity and understanding of tonal harmony that are indistin-
Congenital amusia is a genuine disability that affects
guishable from those of typical musicians [58]. Moreover, although music specifically. Affected individuals, who are otherwise
such ‘musical savants’ often suffer from cognitive and language unimpaired, have extreme difficulties appreciating, per-
retardation, they succeed to develop ‘absolute pitch’ [59]. Possessors ceiving and memorizing music, despite their efforts to do
of absolute pitch are able to name a specific tone without hearing a
reference tone, which is often regarded as the ultimate musical
so. A likely perceptual cause of this difficulty is a deficit in
endowment [60]. fine-grained pitch discrimination that would have pre-
Music and pitch processing are also enhanced in non-savant vented the normal development of the neural networks
autists, who have no musical training. Children with autism and that ascribe musical function to pitch. Thus, the origin of
mental retardation perform better than typically developing children
in their ability to associate tones with pictures [61]. Non-savant
the disorder appears to be acoustic and music-relevant,
autists also exhibit superior discrimination of non-transposed rather than music-specific.
melodies that differ by a single pitch interval, as compared with A major implication of this finding is that the brain
age-matched controls [62]. This remarkable performance with would not be pre-wired or specialized for music. The brain
musical sounds and patterns is not only associated to an extraordi-
would be specialized at a more acoustic level, for
nary memory for pitch, but also to an enhanced ability to detect fine
frequency changes in isolated tones [49]. processing fine spectral acoustic cues. This is consistent
with the model proposed by Zatorre and collaborators [51],
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366 Review TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.8 August 2003

5 Schellenberg, E.G. and Trehub, S.E. (1996) Natural musical intervals:

Box 3. Questions for future research evidence from infant listeners. Psychological Science 7, 272– 277
† The neural correlates of congenital amusia are unknown. Having 6 Trehub, S.E. et al. (1999) Infants’ and adults’ perception of scale
established that the origin can be an aberrant pitch perceptual structure. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 25, 965 – 975
system, narrows down the possible neural loci where an anomaly 7 Burns, E.M. (1999) Intervals, scales, and tuning. In The Psychology of
can be uncovered. Finding a neural anomaly would provide Music (Deutsch, D., ed.), pp. 215– 264, Academic Press
evidence that congenital amusia might arise from a faulty wiring 8 Balzano, G. (1982) The pitch set as a level of description for studying
mechanism. Presently, congenital amusia can be regarded as the musical pitch perception. In Music, Mind and Brain (Clynes, M., ed.),
low tail of a normal distribution. Plenum Press
† About half of the congenital amusic individuals suffer from 9 Drake, C. (1998) Psychological processes involved in the temporal
associated impairments in discriminating musical rhythms, organization of complex auditory sequences: universal and acquired
despite the fact that they are able to detect slight time deviations processes. Music Percept. 16, 11 – 26
from isochrony. The question for future research is to determine 10 Trehub, S.E. (2001) Musical predispositions in infancy. Ann. N. Y.
whether the rhythmic difficulties are a cascade effect of the pitch Acad. Sci. 930, 1 – 16
defect or rather associated problems that may pertain to another 11 Bigand, E. et al. (2001) The effect of harmonic context on phoneme
form of congenital amusia. monitoring. Cognition 81, B11 – B20
† If congenital amusia is genetically inherited, a characteristic 12 Shepard, R. and Jordan, D. (1984) Auditory illusions demonstrating
pedigree should be discerned in the families of the congenital that tones are assimilated to an internalized musical scale. Science
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13 Tillmann, B. et al. (2000) Implicit learning of tonality: a self-organizing
approach. Psychol. Rev. 107, 885 – 913
postulating that the differences in music and speech 14 Krumhansl, C.L. and Kessler, E.J. (1982) Tracing the dynamic changes
processing be related to complementary specialization for in perceived tonal organization in a spatial representation of musical
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fine spectral resolution in the right auditory cortex and for
15 Krumhansl, C.L. (2000) Rhythm and pitch in music cognition. Psychol.
rapid temporal processing in the left auditory cortical Bull. 126, 159 – 179
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20 Tramo, M.J. et al. (1990) Music perception and cognition following
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specification of pitch, then early training at the 21 Janata, P. et al. (2002) The cortical topography of tonal structures
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more, a disorder of fine-pitch resolution might produce agnosia in a nonmusician. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 8, 481 – 496
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music, even though it is to music that it will be most 24 Zatorre, R., Peretz, I. eds (2001) The Biological Foundations of Music,
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ties might be found in the processing of tonal 25 Griffiths, T.D. et al. (1997) Spatial and temporal auditory processing
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28 Steinke, W.R. et al. (2001) Dissociations among functional subsystems
individuals. Amusic individuals are reluctant to acknowl-
governing melody recognition after right-hemisphere damage. Cogn.
edge their deficit because they feel it as a social handicap Neuropsychol. 18, 411 – 437
and, worse, as a lack of a sensitivity that is basic to 29 Wilson, S.J. and Pressing, J. (1999) Neuropsychological assessment
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Acknowledgements subcortical hemorrhages: a case with apperceptive auditory agnosia.
This work was supported by funding from the Canadian Institutes of Cortex 31, 149 – 159
Health Research. We thank Serge Larochelle, Laurent Mottron, Sandra 31 Mendez, M. (2001) Generalized auditory agnosia with spared music
Trehub, and the anonymous reviewers for insightful comments on an recognition in a left-hander: analysis of a case with a right temporal
earlier draft. stroke. Cortex 37, 139– 150
32 Peretz, I. and Coltheart, M. (2003) Modularity of music processing.
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