Abstract
Music sight reading (SR), has been described as a complex task which involves the simultaneous reading of new non-rehearsed material and performance. Although practice related skill have revealed as the most significant predictor of SR, working memory (WM) processes have shown its relevance in the study of individual differences in SR. We aimed to determine how the updating in WM sub-processes of retrieval/transformation and substitution, could differentially contribute to SR when the effects of age and practice were controlled, and according to the difficulty of the SR tasks and the different indexes of performance measured (SR error, tempo maintenance, rhythmic accuracy, pitch accuracy, articulation accuracy and expressiveness). 131 music students of different ages and levels of instrument knowledge participated in the study. The results showed that whereas the efficiency in the retrieval/transformation sub-processes contributed to SR regardless of the difficulty of the SR tasks, the substitution sub-process also contributed to performance at sight but only in low demanding SR tasks. The results also showed all the updating sub-processes were engaged in SR regarding the proportion of error and rhythmic accuracy. However, both expressiveness and tempo maintenance seemed to be uniquely driven by efficiency in the retrieval/transformation sub-processes, whereas articulation accuracy relied on the efficiency to suppress irrelevant information from WM.
Highlights
Music sight reading (SR), has been considered as one of the five basic abilities for all musicians (McPherson and Thompson, 1998)
Practice related skills could refer to both, level of instrument knowledge and specific SR training accumulated. Taking into account this rationale, our main aim was to analyze how the sub-processes of retrieval, transformation and substitution underlying updating in working memory (WM) were related to SR as a function of the demands on memory load and level of suppression, and to analyze how the efficiency in these updating sub-processes could be a source of individual differences in SR as a function of the difficulty of the SR task and of different indexes of performance
In order to analyze how the global index of SR was related to the three indexes of updating as a function of both, the difficulty of the SR tasks and the demands on memory load and level of suppression, Pearson’s partial correlations controlling for age and practice were computed
Summary
Music sight reading (SR), has been considered as one of the five basic abilities for all musicians (McPherson and Thompson, 1998). Updating in Sight Reading Music control and musicality; and (c) the processing of auditory information linked to the adjustment of performance to the printed material, all in real time. Due to the fact that SR requires the simultaneous execution of various tasks in a brief period of time it could be linked to executive functioning (Oswald et al, 2007). In this context, our main objective was to analyze the role of updating information in working memory (WM) executive function in SR performance, in string and wind musicians of different ages and levels of instrument knowledge
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