Abstract
Music expertise is known to be beneficial for cognitive function and development. In this study, we conducted 1-year music training for school children (n = 123; 7–11 years of age before training) in China. The children were assigned to music or second-language after-class training groups. A passive control group was included. We aimed to investigate whether music training could facilitate working memory (WM) development compared to second-language training and no training. Before and after the training, auditory WM was measured via a digit span (DS) task, together with the vocabulary and block tests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Child IV (WISC-IV). The results of the DS task revealed superior development in the music group compared to the other groups. However, further analysis of DS forward and backward tasks indicated that the performance of the three training/non-training groups only differed significantly in DS backward scores, but not in the DS forward scores. We conclude that music training may benefit the central executive system of WM, as reflected by the DS backward task.
Highlights
The effects of music expertise beyond music/sound-related skills have been increasingly investigated since the 1990s
This imbalance was caused by the selective participation of boys in the activities: despite random allocation, of the twenty-six participants who did not want to join the experimental groups but who went to the passive control group, nineteen were boys
The aim of our study was to investigate the effects of music training on auditory working memory (WM) in school-aged children
Summary
The effects of music expertise beyond music/sound-related skills have been increasingly investigated since the 1990s. Studies suggest that individuals with music exposure perform better in tasks measuring language abilities, such as foreign language pronunciation skills (Milovanov et al, 2010), phonological awareness (Linnavalli et al, 2018), and verbal intelligence (Moreno et al, 2012) than those who without music exposure. In addition to these transfer effects on linguistic function, associations between music exposure and higher-level cognitive abilities, which may indicate fartransfer effects, have been reported, for example, in non-verbal intelligence (Schellenberg, 2006) and academic skills (dos Santos-Luiz et al, 2016).
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