Melody Discrimination Research Articles

Low-frequency pitch coding: relationships with speech-in-noise and music perception by pediatric populations with typical hearing and cochlear implants

PurposeThis study aimed to investigate the effects of low frequency (LF) pitch perception on speech-in-noise and music perception performance by children with cochlear implants (CIC) and typical hearing (THC). Moreover, the relationships between speech-in-noise and music perception as well as the effects of demographic and audiological factors on present research outcomes were studied.MethodsThe sample consisted of 22 CIC and 20 THC (7–10 years). Harmonic intonation (HI) and disharmonic intonation (DI) tests were used to assess LF pitch perception. Speech perception in quiet (WRSq)/noise (WRSn + 10) were tested with the Italian bisyllabic words for pediatric populations. The Gordon test was used to evaluate music perception (rhythm, melody, harmony, and overall).ResultsCIC/THC performance comparisons for LF pitch, speech-in-noise, and all music measures except harmony revealed statistically significant differences with large effect sizes. For the CI group, HI showed statistically significant correlations with melody discrimination. Melody/total Gordon scores were significantly correlated with WRSn + 10. For the overall group, HI/DI showed significant correlations with all music perception measures and WRSn + 10. Hearing thresholds showed significant effects on HI/DI scores. Hearing thresholds and WRSn + 10 scores were significantly correlated; both revealed significant effects on all music perception scores. CI age had significant effects on WRSn + 10, harmony, and total Gordon scores (p < 0.05).ConclusionSuch findings confirmed the significant effects of LF pitch perception on complex listening performance. Significant speech-in-noise and music perception correlations were as promising as results from recent studies indicating significant positive effects of music training on speech-in-noise recognition in CIC.

Musical Training as a Continuum: Relationships of Short-Term Memory and Musical Aptitudes

ABSTRACT Introduction This study recruited participants from a range of music training experiences and focused on short-term memory tasks to examine the abilities of trained, informally trained, and those without any music training. Methods Musicianship was measured with the Goldsmith’s Musical Sophistication Index (GMSI). The GMSI is a survey regarding how music is involved in a participant’s daily life. Music training was assessed through the music training subscale of the GMSI, which included a question regarding the years of formal training an individual had received. In two objective measures of musical ability, participants completed the Computerized Adaptive Beat Alignment Test (CABAT) and the Melody Discrimination Test (MDT). The participants also completed an audio and audiovisual span task to measure short-term memory. A correlational analysis was run among the general score of the GMSI subjective task, the GMSI subscales, the span task scores, and the objective measures of musical ability. Lastly, a hierarchical regression was used to predict short-term memory abilities. Results Results of a partial correlation analysis, controlling for the music training subscale, showed that the melodic discrimination task was associated with short-term memory, however, rhythm scores were not. Discussion This study suggested that there is no distinct advantage of formal training over informal training when studying musicians’ memory performance. Future research can benefit from investigating the characteristics of the full sample of participants, and not treating those without formal training as a homogenous group, devoid of any musical abilities.

Music skills of Spanish-speaking children with developmental language disorder

BackgroundAccording to temporal sampling theory, deficits in rhythm processing contribute to both language and music difficulties in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Evidence for this proposition is derived mainly from studies conducted in stress-timed languages, but the results may differ in languages with different rhythm features (e.g., syllable-timed languages). AimsThis research aimed to study a previously unexamined topic, namely, the music skills of children with DLD who speak Spanish (a syllable-timed language), and to analyze the possible relationships between the language and music skills of these children. Methods and ProceduresTwo groups of 18 Spanish-speaking children with DLD and 19 typically-developing peers matched for chronological age completed a set of language tests. Their rhythm discrimination, melody discrimination and music memory skills were also assessed. Outcomes and ResultsChildren with DLD exhibited significantly lower performance than their typically-developing peers on all three music subtests. Music and language skills were significantly related in both groups. Conclusions and ImplicationsThe results suggest that similar music difficulties may be found in children with DLD whether they speak stress-timed or syllable-timed languages. The relationships found between music and language skills may pave the way for the design of possible language intervention programs based on music stimuli.

Musical hearing and the acquisition of foreign-language intonation

The present study seeks to determine whether superior musical hearing is correlated with successful production of second language (L2) intonation patterns. Fifty Polish speakers of English at the university level were recorded before and after an extensive two-semester accent training course in English. Participants were asked to read aloud a series of short dialogues containing different intonation patterns, complete two musical hearing tests measuring tone deafness and melody discrimination, and a survey regarding musical experience. We visually analyzed and assessed participants’ intonation by comparing their F0 contours with the model provided by their accent training teachers following ToBI (Tones and Break Indices) guidelines and compared the results with the musical hearing test scores and the survey responses. The results suggest that more accurate pitch perception can be related to more correct production of L2 intonation patterns as participants with superior musical ear produced more native-like speech contours after training, similar to those of their teachers. After dividing participants into four categories based on their musical hearing test scores and musical experience, we also observed that some students with better musical hearing test scores were able to produce more correct L2 intonation patterns. However, students with poor musical hearing test scores and no musical background also improved, suggesting that the acquisition of L2 intonation in a formal classroom setting can be successful regardless of one’s musical hearing skills.

Bimodal benefits in Mandarin-speaking cochlear implant users for music perception and tone recognition

Background Cochlear implant (CI) users have difficulty appreciating music and perceiving lexical tones in Mandarin Chinese. Wearing a hearing aid (HA) in the contralateral ear for bimodal hearing may provide additional benefits. Objectives To measure the bimodal benefits of music perception and tone recognition and to investigate the relationship between the two in Mandarin-speaking bimodal CI subjects. Materials and methods Sixteen Mandarin-speaking bimodal CI subjects (aged between 16 and 49 years) participated in the study. Music perception (pitch discrimination, melody discrimination and instrument identification) and lexical tone recognition were tested with electric stimulation (CI alone) or bimodal stimulation (CI + HA). Results Subjects showed a significant bimodal benefit in tone recognition in quiet and noise, and in all music perception tests. The bimodal benefit for tone recognition in noise was significantly correlated with that of pitch discrimination thresholds and instrument identification scores. Conclusion Mandarin-speaking bimodal CI users achieved better music perception and tone recognition ability with CI + HA than with CI alone. The bimodal benefit of tone recognition was significantly correlated with that of music perception.

Musical ability, music training, and language ability in childhood.

We tested theories of links between musical expertise and language ability in a sample of 6- to 9-year-old children. Language ability was measured with tests of speech perception and grammar. Musical expertise was measured with a test of musical ability that had 3 subtests (melody discrimination, rhythm discrimination, and long-term memory for music) and as duration of music training. Covariates included measures of demographics, general cognitive ability (IQ, working memory), and personality (openness-to-experience). Music training was associated positively with performance on the grammar test, musical ability, IQ, openness, and age. Musical ability predicted performance on the tests of speech perception and grammar, as well as IQ, working memory, openness, and age. Regression analyses-with other variables held constant-revealed that language abilities had significant partial associations with musical ability and IQ but not with music training. Rhythm discrimination was a better predictor of language skills compared with melody discrimination, but memory for music was equally good. Bayesian analyses confirmed the results from the standard analyses. The implications of the findings are threefold: (a) musical ability predicts language ability, and the association is independent of IQ and other confounding variables; (b) links between music and language appear to arise primarily from preexisting factors and not from formal training in music; and (c) evidence for a special link between rhythm and language may emerge only when rhythm discrimination is compared with melody discrimination. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Perception of melodies and triads at high frequencies

Accurate pitch perception is possible for harmonic complex tones with fundamental frequencies (F0s) in the musical range ( 6 kHz). However, it is unknown whether this basic pitch perception supports multiple simultaneous pitch perception. To address this, we measured (1) melody discrimination with and without a complex-tone masker and (2) major-minor discrimination for triads and arpeggios composed of complex tones with low (∼280 Hz) or high (∼1400 Hz) F0s. The tones were filtered to ensure that in high-F0 conditions only harmonics beyond the limits of phase locking were audible. Melody perception was poorer for isolated high-F0 tones than for isolated low-F0 tones, although performance was above chance in both cases. Adding a complex-tone masker in the same spectral region degraded performance for low- and high-F0 tones. Listeners could discriminate major and minor triads and arpeggios for low-F0 tones. For high-F0 tones, some listeners could discriminate major and minor arpeggios but none could discriminate major and minor triads. These results will help elucidate whether different mechanisms underlie the perception of combinations of complex tones at low and high frequencies. [Work supported by NIH R01DC005216 and NSF NRT-UtB1734815.]

Ability for pitch discrimination and melody discrimination by individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing

Ability for pitch discrimination and melody discrimination by individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing

M54. ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN MUSICAL ABILITY SUBSCALE PERFORMANCE, PSYCHIATRIC SYMPTOMS, AND COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

BackgroundSeveral studies showed that patients with schizophrenia have a lower musical ability that correlates with poorer cognitive functions and severer negative symptoms. Despite the strong relevance of musical ability to cognitive functions and psychiatric symptoms, little is known about the correlation of each subscale of musical ability to cognitive functions and psychiatric symptoms. Therefore, we sought to analyze the correlations of the subtests of musical ability to cognitive functions and psychiatric symptoms.MethodsSixty-four patients with schizophrenia (36 males, mean age = 48.6 ± 10.9 years old) and 80 healthy control subjects (44 males, mean age = 45.3 ± 12.3 years old) consented to participate. We measured musical ability, cognitive functions, and symptom severity using the Montreal Battery for Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA), Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS), and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), respectively. MBEA subscales include melody discrimination, rhythm discrimination, and musical memory. BACS subscales are comprised of verbal memory, working memory, motor speed, word fluency, attention/processing speed, and executive function. We used the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. For the BACS six subscales, and the three musical subscales, we considered p < 0.00278 to be significant (18 tests), and for PANSS three symptom subscale scores and three musical subscales, we considered p < 0.0056 to be significant (9 tests).ResultsAll musical subscale scores of patients were significantly lower than controls. Lower musical ability subscales were correlated with lower cognitive functions in both healthy controls and patients. In schizophrenia, as previously reported, there were associations between lower musical ability subscales, lower cognitive functions, and more severe psychiatric symptoms. In patients with schizophrenia, while melody discrimination was not correlated with cognitive functions, rhythm discrimination was correlated with verbal memory (beta = 0.378, SE= 0.010, t = 3.42, p = 0.0012) and attention/processing speed (beta = 0.433, SE= 0.013, t = 3.20, p = 0.0022) adjusted for age, gender, and years of musical education. PANSS negative symptoms were correlated with melody discrimination (beta = 0.346, SE= 0.051, t = -2.82, p = 0.0066) and rhythm discrimination (beta = 0.3259, SE= 0.045, t = -2.88, p = 0.0056), but not musical memory.DiscussionThis study revealed an association between performance on rhythm discrimination and both verbal memory and word fluency. Furthermore, more severe negative symptoms were associated with lower abilities in melody and rhythm discrimination. Rhythm discrimination could be associated with language disturbances, possibly providing a new insight into the language and musical deficits contributing to the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.

Previous Musical Experience and Cortical Thickness Relate to the Beneficial Effect of Motor Synchronization on Auditory Function.

Auditory processing can be enhanced by motor system activity. During auditory-motor synchronization, motor activity guides auditory attention and thus facilitates auditory processing through active sensing. Previous research on enhanced auditory processing through motor synchronization has been limited to easy tasks with simple stimulus material. Further, the mechanisms and brain regions underlying this synchronization are unclear. We investigated the effect of motor synchronization on auditory processing with naturalistic, musical auditory material in a discrimination task. We further assessed how previous musical training and cortical thickness of specific brain regions relate to different aspects of auditory-motor synchronization. We conducted an auditory-motor experiment in 139 adults. The task involved melody discrimination and beat tapping synchronization. Additionally, 68 participants underwent structural MRI. We found that individuals with better auditory-motor synchronization accuracy showed improved melody discrimination, and that melody discrimination was better in trials with higher tapping accuracy. However, melody discrimination was worse in the tapping than in the listening only condition. Longer previous musical training and thicker Heschl’s gyri were associated with better melody discrimination and better tapping synchrony. Post hoc analyses furthermore pointed to a possible moderating role of frontal regions. Our results suggest that motor synchronization can enhance auditory discrimination abilities through active sensing, but that this beneficial effect can be counteracted by dual-task inference when the two tasks are too challenging. Moreover, prior experience and structural brain differences influence the extent to which an individual can benefit from motor synchronization in complex listening. This could inform future research directed at development of personalized training programs for hearing ability.

Contributions of age of start, cognitive abilities and practice to musical task performance in childhood.

Studies with adult musicians show that beginning lessons before age seven is associated with better performance on musical tasks and enhancement in auditory and motor brain regions. It is hypothesized that early training interacts with periods of heightened neural development to promote greater plasticity and better learning and performance later in life. However, we do not know whether such effects can be observed in childhood. Moreover, we do not know the degree to which such effects are related to training, or whether early training has different effects on particular musical skills depending on their cognitive, perceptual or motor requirements. To address these questions, we compared groups of child musicians who had started lessons earlier or later on age-normed tests of rhythm synchronization and melody discrimination. We also matched for age, years of experience, working memory and global cognitive ability. Results showed that children who started early performed better on simple melody discrimination and that scores on this task were predicted by both age of start (AoS) and cognitive ability. There was no effect of AoS for the more complex rhythm or transposed melody tasks, but these scores were significantly predicted by working memory ability, and for transposed melodies, by hours of weekly practice. These findings provide the first evidence that earlier AoS for music training in childhood results in enhancement of specific musical skills. Integrating these results with those for adult musicians, we hypothesize that early training has an immediate impact on simple melody discrimination skills that develop early, while more complex abilities, like synchronization and transposition require both further maturation and additional training.

The music quality feeling and music perception of adult cochlear implant recipients

Objective:To assess the music quality feeling and music perception abilities of adults with cochlear implants and to probe the correlation between the two. Method:Forty adult cochlear implant recipients recruited from the Bejing Tongren Hosipital(27 males, 13 females, average ages at 36.13±13.33) and 40 normal-hearing subjects(21 males, 19females, average ages at 26.53±6.94) participated in this study. Musical Sounds In Cochlear Implant were used to assess the pitch, melody and timbre perception for both normal-hearing subjects and adult cochlear implant recipients. To assess the self-reported music quality feeling of normal-hearing subjects and adult cochlear implant recipients from three aspects of listening music quality(Naturalness, comfort, and clarity). Using some questions about musical background and listening habits of the Munich Music questionnaire(MUMU) to assess the musical experience scores of all subjects.Result:For cochlear implant recipients, the pitch discrimination thresholds at A4 and C4 and the correction rate of melody discrimination and instrument identification test were significantly different from those for normalhearing subjects(P<0.05). The average music quality feeling scores of the cochlear implant recipients and normal-hearing subjects were 4.75±2.76 and 8.33±1.47, respectively. The differences between the two groups were significant(P<0.05). Type of CI had no significant influence on the results of musical quality feeling(P>0.05). The scores of music quality feeling was significantly related with the pitch discrimination thresholds at A4 and C4(P<0.05), but had no significant correlation with the correlation rate of melody discrimination test and instrument identification test(P>0.05).Conclusion:For adult cochlear implant recipients, the music quality feeling and the music perception ability are weaker than normal-hearing subjects. The music quality feeling is related to the pitch perception, but had no relationship with the melody and timbre perception ability.

Rhythm and Melody Tasks for School-Aged Children With and Without Musical Training: Age-Equivalent Scores and Reliability.

Measuring musical abilities in childhood can be challenging. When music training and maturation occur simultaneously, it is difficult to separate the effects of specific experience from age-based changes in cognitive and motor abilities. The goal of this study was to develop age-equivalent scores for two measures of musical ability that could be reliably used with school-aged children (7–13) with and without musical training. The children's Rhythm Synchronization Task (c-RST) and the children's Melody Discrimination Task (c-MDT) were adapted from adult tasks developed and used in our laboratories. The c-RST is a motor task in which children listen and then try to synchronize their taps with the notes of a woodblock rhythm while it plays twice in a row. The c-MDT is a perceptual task in which the child listens to two melodies and decides if the second was the same or different. We administered these tasks to 213 children in music camps (musicians, n = 130) and science camps (non-musicians, n = 83). We also measured children's paced tapping, non-paced tapping, and phonemic discrimination as baseline motor and auditory abilities We estimated internal-consistency reliability for both tasks, and compared children's performance to results from studies with adults. As expected, musically trained children outperformed those without music lessons, scores decreased as difficulty increased, and older children performed the best. Using non-musicians as a reference group, we generated a set of age-based z-scores, and used them to predict task performance with additional years of training. Years of lessons significantly predicted performance on both tasks, over and above the effect of age. We also assessed the relation between musician's scores on music tasks, baseline tasks, auditory working memory, and non-verbal reasoning. Unexpectedly, musician children outperformed non-musicians in two of three baseline tasks. The c-RST and c-MDT fill an important need for researchers interested in evaluating the impact of musical training in longitudinal studies, those interested in comparing the efficacy of different training methods, and for those assessing the impact of training on non-musical cognitive abilities such as language processing.

Learning for pitch and melody discrimination in congenital amusia

Congenital amusia is currently thought to be a life-long neurogenetic disorder in music perception, impervious to training in pitch or melody discrimination. This study provides an explicit test of whether amusic deficits can be reduced with training. Twenty amusics and 20 matched controls participated in four sessions of psychophysical training involving either pure-tone (500 Hz) pitch discrimination or a control task of lateralization (interaural level differences for bandpass white noise). Pure-tone pitch discrimination at low, medium, and high frequencies (500, 2000, and 8000 Hz) was measured before and after training (pretest and posttest) to determine the specificity of learning. Melody discrimination was also assessed before and after training using the full Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia, the most widely used standardized test to diagnose amusia. Amusics performed more poorly than controls in pitch but not localization discrimination, but both groups improved with practice on the trained stimuli. Learning was broad, occurring across all three frequencies and melody discrimination for all groups, including those who trained on the non-pitch control task. Following training, 11 of 20 amusics no longer met the global diagnostic criteria for amusia. A separate group of untrained controls (n = 20), who also completed melody discrimination and pretest, improved by an equal amount as trained controls on all measures, suggesting that the bulk of learning for the control group occurred very rapidly from the pretest. Thirty-one trained participants (13 amusics) returned one year later to assess long-term maintenance of pitch and melody discrimination. On average, there was no change in performance between posttest and one-year follow-up, demonstrating that improvements on pitch- and melody-related tasks in amusics and controls can be maintained. The findings indicate that amusia is not always a life-long deficit when using the current standard diagnostic criteria.

Measuring the musical skills of a prodigy: A case study

While there is a strong interest in and fascination with music prodigies, very few measurements have been conducted on this rare phenomenon and very little empirical data exist. We document the case of LN, an 11-year-old music prodigy. We tested him on his cognitive skills (non-verbal reasoning and working memory), rhythm and melody discrimination skills, sight reading, improvisation, pitch accuracy, and musical memory. The data were then compared to various controls: a group of music students of the same age group (for cognitive and discrimination skills); three university music students with perfect pitch (for pitch accuracy and musical memory); and a music prodigy of similar age who was tested almost one hundred years ago (for pitch accuracy and musical memory). This is the first study that compares the test results of a contemporary music prodigy with the rare data of a prodigy studied in the early 20th century; the results are remarkably similar. LN's results on cognitive skills confirm the exceptional working memory often associated with prodigies. Most interestingly, musical ability results revealed a phenomenal level of melody discrimination, pitch accuracy and musical memory (skills related to auditory pitch memory), but just average rhythm skills, below average sight reading ability and he was not able to improvise. This suggests the potentially important role of exceptional auditory pitch memory in the development of musical prodigies.

A Follow-Up Study on Music and Lexical Tone Perception in Adult Mandarin-Speaking Cochlear Implant Users.

The aim was to evaluate the development of music and lexical tone perception in Mandarin-speaking adult cochlear implant (CI) users over a period of 1 year. Prospective patient series. Tertiary hospital and research institute. Twenty five adult CI users, with ages ranging from 19 to 75 years old, participated in a year-long follow-up evaluation. There were also 40 normal hearing adult subjects who participated as a control group to provide the normal value range. Musical sounds in cochlear implants (Mu.S.I.C.) test battery was undertaken to evaluate music perception ability. Mandarin Tone Identification in Noise Test (M-TINT) was used to assess lexical tone recognition. The tests for CI users were completed at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after the CI switch-on. Quantitative and statistical analysis of their results from music and tone perception tests. The performance of music perception and tone recognition both demonstrated an overall improvement in outcomes during the entire 1-year follow-up process. The increasing trends were obvious in the early period especially in the first 6 months after switch-on. There was a significant improvement in the melody discrimination (p < 0.01), timbre identification (p < 0.001), tone recognition in quiet (p < 0.0001), and in noise (p < 0.0001). Adult Mandarin-speaking CI users show an increasingly improved performance on music and tone perception during the 1-year follow-up. The improvement was the most prominent in the first 6 months of CI use. It is essential to strengthen the rehabilitation training within the first 6 months.

Long-term maintenance for learning on pitch and melody discrimination in congenital amusia

Congenital amusia is described as a life-long disorder in melody discrimination, related to poor fine-grained pitch perception. A recent study in our lab found, however, that pitch and melody discrimination in amusia can improve with laboratory training. After training, over half of the amusics no longer met the standard diagnostic criterion for amusia, assessed via the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA). The present study examined the durability of learning effects by re-examining frequency difference limens (FDLs) and melody discrimination in the same participants one year after post training. Pure-tone FDLs were measured at 500, 2000, and 8000 Hz using an adaptive three-interval forced-choice procedure, and melody discrimination was assessed via the MBEA. Preliminary results (n = 23; 11 amusics) showed no significant change in FDLs or melody discrimination between post training and one-year follow-up. Consistent with post-training results, there were significant main effects of group, with...

Statistical learning and auditory processing in children with music training: An ERP study.

The question whether musical training is associated with enhanced auditory and cognitive abilities in children is of considerable interest. In the present study, we compared children with music training versus those without music training across a range of auditory and cognitive measures, including the ability to detect implicitly statistical regularities in input (statistical learning). Statistical learning of regularities embedded in auditory and visual stimuli was measured in musically trained and age-matched untrained children between the ages of 9-11years. In addition to collecting behavioural measures, we recorded electrophysiological measures to obtain an online measure of segmentation during the statistical learning tasks. Musically trained children showed better performance on melody discrimination, rhythm discrimination, frequency discrimination, and auditory statistical learning. Furthermore, grand-averaged ERPs showed that triplet onset (initial stimulus) elicited larger responses in the musically trained children during both auditory and visual statistical learning tasks. In addition, children's music skills were associated with performance on auditory and visual behavioural statistical learning tasks. Our data suggests that individual differences in musical skills are associated with children's ability to detect regularities. The ERP data suggest that musical training is associated with better encoding of both auditory and visual stimuli. Although causality must be explored in further research, these results may have implications for developing music-based remediation strategies for children with learning impairments.

Infant pitch perception: Missing fundamental melody discrimination.

Although recent results show that 3-month-olds can discriminate complex tones by their missing fundamental, it is arguable whether they are discriminating on the basis of a perceived pitch. A defining characteristic of pitch is that it carries melodic information. This study investigated whether 3-month-olds, 7-month-olds, and adults can detect a change in a melody composed of missing fundamental complexes. Participants heard a seven-note melody and learned to respond to a change that violated the melodic contour. To ensure that participants were responding on the basis of pitch, the notes in the melody had missing fundamentals and varied in spectral content on each presentation. In experiment I, all melodies had the same absolute pitch, while in experiment II, the melodies were randomly transposed into one of three different keys on each presentation. Almost all participants learned to ignore the spectral changes and respond to the changed note of the melody in both experiments, strengthening the argument that complex tones elicit a sense of musical pitch in infants. These results provide evidence that complex pitch perception is functional by 3 months of age.

Sensorimotor integration is enhanced in dancers and musicians

Studying individuals with specialized training, such as dancers and musicians, provides an opportunity to investigate how intensive practice of sensorimotor skills affects behavioural performance across various domains. While several studies have found that musicians have improved motor, perceptual and sensorimotor integration skills compared to untrained controls, fewer studies have examined the effect of dance training on such skills. Moreover, no study has specifically compared the effects of dance versus music training on perceptual or sensorimotor performance. To this aim, in the present study, expert dancers, expert musicians and untrained controls were tested on a range of perceptual and sensorimotor tasks designed to discriminate performance profiles across groups. Dancers performed better than musicians and controls on a dance imitation task (involving whole-body movement), but musicians performed better than dancers and controls on a musical melody discrimination task as well as on a rhythm synchronization task (involving finger tapping). These results indicate that long-term intensive dance and music training are associated with distinct enhancements in sensorimotor skills. This novel work advances knowledge of the effects of long-term dance versus music training and has potential applications in therapies for motor disorders.