Musical Sophistication and Speech Auditory-Motor Coupling: Easy Tests for Quick Answers.

Johanna M Rimmele,David Poeppel,Christina Lubinus,Klaus Frieler,Pius Kern,M Florencia Assaneo

doi:10.3389/fnins.2021.764342

Abstract

Musical training enhances auditory-motor cortex coupling, which in turn facilitates music and speech perception. How tightly the temporal processing of music and speech are intertwined is a topic of current research. We investigated the relationship between musical sophistication (Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication index, Gold-MSI) and spontaneous speech-to-speech synchronization behavior as an indirect measure of speech auditory-motor cortex coupling strength. In a group of participants (n = 196), we tested whether the outcome of the spontaneous speech-to-speech synchronization test (SSS-test) can be inferred from self-reported musical sophistication. Participants were classified as high (HIGHs) or low (LOWs) synchronizers according to the SSS-test. HIGHs scored higher than LOWs on all Gold-MSI subscales (General Score, Active Engagement, Musical Perception, Musical Training, Singing Skills), but the Emotional Attachment scale. More specifically, compared to a previously reported German-speaking sample, HIGHs overall scored higher and LOWs lower. Compared to an estimated distribution of the English-speaking general population, our sample overall scored lower, with the scores of LOWs significantly differing from the normal distribution, with scores in the ∼30th percentile. While HIGHs more often reported musical training compared to LOWs, the distribution of training instruments did not vary across groups. Importantly, even after the highly correlated subscores of the Gold-MSI were decorrelated, particularly the subscales Musical Perception and Musical Training allowed to infer the speech-to-speech synchronization behavior. The differential effects of musical perception and training were observed, with training predicting audio-motor synchronization in both groups, but perception only in the HIGHs. Our findings suggest that speech auditory-motor cortex coupling strength can be inferred from training and perceptual aspects of musical sophistication, suggesting shared mechanisms involved in speech and music perception.

Highlights

The beneficial effects of musical training on auditory cognition have long been recognized (Zatorre, 2005)
The present study investigates the relationship between aspects of musical sophistication and speech auditory-motor coupling by using the Gold-MSI self-inventory of musical sophistication (Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index; GoldMSI; Müllensiefen et al, 2014) and a behavioral test that enables the estimation of speech auditory-motor coupling through the spontaneous synchronization between speech perception and production (SSS-test; Assaneo et al, 2019a)
Wilcoxon rank sum tests showed for high synchronizers increased Gold-MSI scores compared to low synchronizers (Figure 3) for the general factor General Sophistication (GS) (W = 12,772, p < 0.0001, r = 0.261) and the subscales Active Engagement (W = 12,205, p = 0.0002, r = 0.188), Perceptual Skills (W = 12,663, p < 0.0001, r = 0.246), Musical Training (W = 1,278, p < 0.0002, r = 0.261), and Singing Skills (W = 1,256, p < 0.0001, r = 0.233)

Summary

Introduction

The beneficial effects of musical training on auditory cognition have long been recognized (Zatorre, 2005). The generalizability of musical training to higher cognitive and nonmusic-related tasks (beyond pitch processing) has been discussed controversially (Moreno and Bidelman, 2014; Ruggles et al, 2014; Carey et al, 2015), many studies report beneficial effects on auditory perception. A beneficial effect of musical training on speech perception has been related to increased auditory-motor coupling and synchronization (Bailey et al, 2014; Du and Zatorre, 2017; Puschmann et al, 2018). Improved syllable perception at varying noise levels in musicians compared to non-musicians was accompanied by increased left inferior frontal and right auditory activity (Du and Zatorre, 2017). The impact of musical training on speech perception through auditory-motor coupling might be related to working memory improvements due to more efficient sensorimotor integration (Guo et al, 2017)

Methods

Results

Conclusion