Cross‐sectional study on the relationship between music training and working memory in adults

Suárez, Lidia; Elangovan, Shalini; Au, Agnes

doi:10.1111/ajpy.12087

Cited by 51 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…In long-term memory tasks, musicians of all ages generally performed better than nonmusicians in verbal learning and recall tasks (involving words and numbers) [ 14 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ], although a few studies did not find this was true of adult musicians [ 23 , 24 , 25 ]. When the stimuli were visual (e.g., figures), only one study found that adult musicians performed better than nonmusicians [ 19 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In short-term memory tasks, musicians of all ages performed better than nonmusicians when asked to reproduce sequences of numbers, letters, or words [ 15 , 25 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ] but two studies testing adult musicians and nonmusicians did not observe any difference [ 36 , 37 ]. Adult and older musicians were also found better than nonmusicians at reproducing visual and spatial sequences in some studies [ 25 , 29 , 38 , 39 , 40 ], but not in others (e.g., [ 15 , 34 , 37 , 41 , 42 ]). Finally, when the stimuli were musical (e.g., tones, chords, melodies), adult musicians unsurprisingly performed better than nonmusicians [ 40 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several researchers also examined how musicians and nonmusicians performed in working memory tasks. Musicians were more successful than nonmusicians in tasks that involved storing and manipulating verbal information or recalling information while completing a secondary task [ 7 , 14 , 25 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 35 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]. Here again, though, some studies found no such difference, or it emerged for children but not for adults [ 15 , 30 , 36 , 49 , 54 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Musicians have better memory than nonmusicians: A meta-analysis

et al. 2017

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BackgroundSeveral studies have found that musicians perform better than nonmusicians in memory tasks, but this is not always the case, and the strength of this apparent advantage is unknown. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis with the aim of clarifying whether musicians perform better than nonmusicians in memory tasks.MethodsEducation Source; PEP (WEB)—Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing; Psychology and Behavioral Science (EBSCO); PsycINFO (Ovid); PubMed; ScienceDirect—AllBooks Content (Elsevier API); SCOPUS (Elsevier API); SocINDEX with Full Text (EBSCO) and Google Scholar were searched for eligible studies. The selected studies involved two groups of participants: young adult musicians and nonmusicians. All the studies included memory tasks (loading long-term, short-term or working memory) that contained tonal, verbal or visuospatial stimuli. Three meta-analyses were run separately for long-term memory, short-term memory and working memory.ResultsWe collected 29 studies, including 53 memory tasks. The results showed that musicians performed better than nonmusicians in terms of long-term memory, g = .29, 95% CI (.08–.51), short-term memory, g = .57, 95% CI (.41–.73), and working memory, g = .56, 95% CI (.33–.80). To further explore the data, we included a moderator (the type of stimulus presented, i.e., tonal, verbal or visuospatial), which was found to influence the effect size for short-term and working memory, but not for long-term memory. In terms of short-term and working memory, the musicians’ advantage was large with tonal stimuli, moderate with verbal stimuli, and small or null with visuospatial stimuli.ConclusionsThe three meta-analyses revealed a small effect size for long-term memory, and a medium effect size for short-term and working memory, suggesting that musicians perform better than nonmusicians in memory tasks. Moreover, the effect of the moderator suggested that, the type of stimuli influences this advantage.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Musicians have better memory than nonmusicians: A meta-analysis

et al. 2017

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“…The backwards digit span test is classically used for indexing working memory. Previous research has found an advantage for musically trained adults (George & Coch, ; Hansen et al ., ; Suárez et al ., ) in span tests for working memory and in a test for working memory of musical chord sequences (Pallesen et al ., ). Advantages for musically trained children have also been reported (Lee et al ., ; Roden et al ., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive flexibility modulates maturation and music‐training‐related changes in neural sound discrimination

Saarikivi

Putkinen

Tervaniemi

et al. 2016

Eur J of Neuroscience

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Previous research has demonstrated that musicians show superior neural sound discrimination when compared to non-musicians, and that these changes emerge with accumulation of training. Our aim was to investigate whether individual differences in executive functions predict training-related changes in neural sound discrimination. We measured event-related potentials induced by sound changes coupled with tests for executive functions in musically trained and non-trained children aged 9-11 years and 13-15 years. High performance in a set-shifting task, indexing cognitive flexibility, was linked to enhanced maturation of neural sound discrimination in both musically trained and non-trained children. Specifically, well-performing musically trained children already showed large mismatch negativity (MMN) responses at a young age as well as at an older age, indicating accurate sound discrimination. In contrast, the musically trained low-performing children still showed an increase in MMN amplitude with age, suggesting that they were behind their high-performing peers in the development of sound discrimination. In the non-trained group, in turn, only the high-performing children showed evidence of an age-related increase in MMN amplitude, and the low-performing children showed a small MMN with no age-related change. These latter results suggest an advantage in MMN development also for high-performing non-trained individuals. For the P3a amplitude, there was an age-related increase only in the children who performed well in the set-shifting task, irrespective of music training, indicating enhanced attention-related processes in these children. Thus, the current study provides the first evidence that, in children, cognitive flexibility may influence age-related and training-related plasticity of neural sound discrimination.

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“…There is increasing interest in the effects of music training on enhancement of general cognitive abilities and intelligence (Moreno et al, 2011;Schellenberg, 2011;Schellenberg and Weiss, 2013;Zuk et al, 2014;Costa-Giomi, 2015), and evidence suggests that working memory is an important component of the cognitive benefits derived from music training (Bergman Nutley et al, 2014;Suárez et al, 2015). For the purposes of this review, we define working memory as time-and capacity-limited storage of task-relevant information, which generally requires one or more of the following operations: mental manipulation, flexible use, or inhibition of distractors.…”

Section: Behavioral Measures Of Working Memory In Adultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Music Training, Working Memory, and Neural Oscillations: A Review

et al. 2020

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This review focuses on reports that link music training to working memory and neural oscillations. Music training is increasingly associated with improvement in working memory, which is strongly related to both localized and distributed patterns of neural oscillations. Importantly, there is a small but growing number of reports of relationships between music training, working memory, and neural oscillations in adults. Taken together, these studies make important contributions to our understanding of the neural mechanisms that support effects of music training on behavioral measures of executive functions. In addition, they reveal gaps in our knowledge that hold promise for further investigation. The current review is divided into the main sections that follow: (1) discussion of behavioral measures of working memory, and effects of music training on working memory in adults; (2) relationships between music training and neural oscillations during temporal stages of working memory; (3) relationships between music training and working memory in children; (4) relationships between music training and working memory in older adults; and (5) effects of entrainment of neural oscillations on cognitive processing. We conclude that the study of neural oscillations is proving useful in elucidating the neural mechanisms of relationships between music training and the temporal stages of working memory. Moreover, a lifespan approach to these studies will likely reveal strategies to improve and maintain executive function during development and aging.

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Cross‐sectional study on the relationship between music training and working memory in adults

Cited by 51 publications

References 46 publications

Musicians have better memory than nonmusicians: A meta-analysis

Musicians have better memory than nonmusicians: A meta-analysis

Cognitive flexibility modulates maturation and music‐training‐related changes in neural sound discrimination

Music Training, Working Memory, and Neural Oscillations: A Review

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