Musical Expertise Is Associated with Improved Neural Statistical Learning in the Auditory Domain.

Abstract

It is poorly known whether musical training leads to improvements in general cognitive skills. One fundamental cognitive ability, SL, is thought to be enhanced in musicians, but previous studies have reported mixed results. This is because such musician's advantage can embrace very different explanations, such as improvement in auditory discrimination or in memory. To solve this problem, we developed a Bayesian model and recorded EEG to dissociate these explanations. Our results reveal that musical expertise is truly associated with an improved ability to learn sequence statistics, especially high-order statistics. This advantage is reflected in the electroencephalographic recordings, where the P300 amplitude is more sensitive to surprising items in musicians than in nonmusicians.