Musicians' Enhanced Neural Differentiation of Speech Sounds Arises Early in Life: Developmental Evidence from Ages 3 to 30

Abstract

The perception and neural representation of acoustically similar speech sounds underlie language development. Music training hones the perception of minute acoustic differences that distinguish sounds; this training may generalize to speech processing given that adult musicians have enhanced neural differentiation of similar speech syllables compared with nonmusicians. Here, we asked whether this neural advantage in musicians is present early in life by assessing musically trained and untrained children as young as age 3. We assessed auditory brainstem responses to the speech syllables /ba/ and /ga/ as well as auditory and visual cognitive abilities in musicians and nonmusicians across 3 developmental time-points: preschoolers, school-aged children, and adults. Cross-phase analyses objectively measured the degree to which subcortical responses differed to these speech syllables in musicians and nonmusicians for each age group. Results reveal that musicians exhibit enhanced neural differentiation of stop consonants early in life and with as little as a few years of training. Furthermore, the extent of subcortical stop consonant distinction correlates with auditory-specific cognitive abilities (i.e., auditory working memory and attention). Results are interpreted according to a corticofugal framework for auditory learning in which subcortical processing enhancements are engendered by strengthened cognitive control over auditory function in musicians.

Music Enrichment Programs Improve the Neural Encoding of Speech in At-Risk Children

“…These findings therefore provide support for the efficacy of community and co-curricular music programs to engender improvements in nervous system function. These children are from underserved backgrounds and stand at high risk for academic and social problems; this impoverishment carries concomitant biological insults (Bradley and Corwyn, 2002;Skoe et al, 2013). Our finding reveals the potential for neuroplasticity in the impoverished human brain (Neville et al, 2013), paralleling an effect shown in a rat model (Zhu et al, 2014).…”

“…This interpretation is supported by evidence from humans and animals that the nervous system has profound potential for functional reorganization following auditory training, imparting a positive impact on everyday communication (Recanzone et al, 1993;Blake et al, 2006;Kilgard, 2012;Anderson et al, 2013;Anguera et al, 2013;Heim et al, 2013;Engineer et al, 2014). It is thought that music training can effect structural and functional neural changes (i.e., experience-dependent plasticity; Kraus and Chandrasekaran, 2010;Patel, 2011;Herholz and Zatorre, 2012;Zatorre, 2013) because music engages widely distributed sensory, cognitive, and reward networks in the brainthe very networks whose integration drives neuroplasticity.…”

“…It is thought that music training can effect structural and functional neural changes (i.e., experience-dependent plasticity; Kraus and Chandrasekaran, 2010;Patel, 2011;Herholz and Zatorre, 2012;Zatorre, 2013) because music engages widely distributed sensory, cognitive, and reward networks in the brainthe very networks whose integration drives neuroplasticity. However, only a small number of longitudinal studies have described a direct effect of music training (Fujioka et al, 2006;Moreno et al, 2009;Johnson et al, 2013;Tierney et al, 2013;Chobert et al, 2014) and debates persist concerning innate differences between musicians and non-musicians versus a causal role for music training (Corrigall et al, 2013;Zatorre, 2013); although there is encouraging longitudinal evidence for the potential of music training to engender improvements in automatic sound processing in children in this age range (Putkinen et al, 2014).…”

Tuning the mind: Exploring the connections between musical ability and executive functions

“…Relatedly, the modality-specificity or generality of these effects remains unclear. While some work suggests that musician advantages in EF (and other cognitive abilities) may be limited to auditory tasks (e.g., Hansen, Wallentin, & Vuust, 2013;Strait et al, 2010;Strait, O'Connell, Parbery-Clark, & Kraus, 2014;cf. Carey et al, 2015), other studies find effects in the visual modality as well (e.g., Bialystok & DePape, 2009;Oechslin et al, 2013), but there have been few investigations using comparable auditory and visual EF tasks.…”

Music training alters the course of adolescent auditory development

“…differentiate speech sounds to a greater extent (65)(66)(67), track stimulus pitch more accurately (68,69), and are more consistent across trials (59,70). In adolescence, music training leads to faster responses to speech in noise (71), but the extent to which adolescent music training can confer other aspects of the musician signature remains unknown.…”