Abstract
Learning to play a musical instrument is a demanding process requiring years of intense practice. Dramatic changes in brain connectivity, volume, and functionality have been shown in skilled musicians. It is thought that music learning involves the formation of novel audio visuomotor associations, but not much is known about the gradual acquisition of this ability. In the present study, we investigated whether formal music training enhances audiovisual multisensory processing. To this end, pupils at different stages of education were examined based on the hypothesis that the strength of audio/visuomotor associations would be augmented as a function of the number of years of conservatory study (expertise). The study participants were violin and clarinet students of pre-academic and academic levels and of different chronological ages, ages of acquisition, and academic levels. A violinist and a clarinetist each played the same score, and each participant viewed the video corresponding to his or her instrument. Pitch, intensity, rhythm, and sound duration were matched across instruments. In half of the trials, the soundtrack did not match (in pitch) the corresponding musical gestures. Data analysis indicated a correlation between the number of years of formal training (expertise) and the ability to detect an audiomotor incongruence in music performance (relative to the musical instrument practiced), thus suggesting a direct correlation between knowing how to play and perceptual sensitivity.
Highlights
Research has shown that learning to play a musical instrument has dramatic effects on cognition (Schlaug et al, 2005), even after only a few years of training
Overall data analysis indicated a strong effect of the number of years devoted to musical studies in the ability to detect audiovisual incongruences, which is consistent with the available neuroimaging literature showing that long-term musical training alters the basic audiovisual temporal processing in the skilled musician (Paraskevopoulos et al, 2012; Lu et al, 2014; Proverbio et al, 2014)
To our knowledge, all such studies have been performed comparing the skilled brain of musicians to adult non-musicians [see for example Bermudez and Zatorre (2005) and Barrett et al (2013), for a review], and no knowledge is available about the degree of musical expertise and the formation of new associations within the learning brain
Summary
Research has shown that learning to play a musical instrument has dramatic effects on cognition (Schlaug et al, 2005), even after only a few years of training. The development of audiomotor representations amateur musicians with 0–26 years of musical practice with a variety instruments to identify which brain areas undergo gray matter changes as a function of expertise. They found that some brain areas underwent volume changes after only a few years of musical practice, whereas others (especially auditory and motor areas such as the superior temporal and supplementary motor areas) required longer practice before they exhibited changes, suggesting a long-lasting learning process
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