Early musical training contributes to decision-making ability.

Abstract

Decision making is a complex process that involves weighing the probabilities of alternative options that can be desirable, undesirable, or neutral. Such a process necessarily involves both emotional responses and cognitive processes (Damasio, Everitt, & Bishop, 1996; Li, Lu, D'Argembeau, Ng, & Bechara, 2010). Indeed, previous studies have found that decision-making performance is associated with both emotion (Bajaj, Lamichhane, Adhikari, & Dhamala, 2013; Choi, de Melo, Woo, & Gratch, 2012; Furl, Gallagher, & Averbeck, 2012; Mussel, Goritz, & Hewig, 2013) and cognition (e.g., working memory [WM]; Dretsch & Tipples, 2008; Kerr & Zelazo, 2004; Remijnse, Nielen, Uylings, & Veltman, 2005). Previous research has further distinguished two types of decision making based on the degree of uncertainty about the outcome: decisions under ambiguity are those without knowing the precise probability distribution of the possible outcomes, and decisions under risk are those with known outcome probabilities (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994, Bechara, Damasio, & Damasio, 2000; He et al., 2010; Stoltenberg & Vandever, 2010). The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been widely used to assess decision making under both ambiguity and risk (Bechara et al., 1994, 2000; He et al., 2010). At the early stage of the IGT, players have little explicit knowledge about IGT alternatives, so they are making decisions under ambiguity. As the task progresses, players develop explicit knowledge of the risk profile across IGT alternatives, so they make decision knowing the risks (Brand, Recknor, Grabenhorst, & Bechara, 2007; Upton, Bishara, Ahn, & Stout, 2011).Musical training has been found to improve emotional processes such as emotion perception (Alluri et al., 2015) and understanding (Schellenberg & Mankarious, 2012), as well as cognitive processes such as WM (George & Coch, 2011; Hou et al., 2014). However, no study to date has examined whether musical training can influence decision-making ability. Given the positive effects of musical training on emotional and cognitive processes, the current study tested the hypothesis that musical training (especially early training) would be associated with better performance on the IGT. In addition, this study examined whether such effects were inde- pendent of training-related improvement in WM and/or emotion perception.Method and MaterialsParticipantsData for this study came from a larger project (e.g., Chen et al., 2013; Hou et al., 2014). Five hundred sixty-seven undergraduates at Beijing Normal University took the IGT test as well as other cognitive tests (see below for details). Based on their self-report (see below), 42 participants had early musical training (e.g., piano, keyboard, violin, and accordion) starting before the age of 7 years (11 males and 31 females; Table 1); 52 participants had late musical training (e.g., piano, keyboard, clarinet, and saxophone) starting after the age of 8 years (13 males and 39 females; see Table 1). From 473 participants who had no musical training, we selected 60 participants (12 males and 48 females; see Table 1) to match, roughly, the early and late musical training participants, in terms of age, gender, and IQ.MeasuresMusical training history. Participants were asked the age at which they started formal musical training, the types of musical instruments they used, and the number of years they had such formal training.The IGT. A computerized version of the IGT (Bechara et al., 2000; He et al., 2010) was used in the current study to assess decision making under ambiguity and risk (a screen shot is displayed in Figure 1). To motivate subjects, they were informed that the amount of their winning would be converted into real money. Participants were asked to select one card at a time (100 trials in total) from one of the four decks (labeled A, B, C, and D). As described in previous studies and the IGT manual (PAR, Inc, Lutz, FL), two of the decks were disadvantageous because they yielded high immediate gain but a greater loss in the long run (i. …