Variations on the theme of musical expertise: cognitive and sensory processing in percussionists, vocalists and non‐musicians

Abstract

Comparisons of musicians and non-musicians have revealed enhanced cognitive and sensory processing in musicians, with longitudinal studies suggesting these enhancements may be due in part to experience-based plasticity. Here, we investigate the impact of primary instrument on the musician signature of expertise by assessing three groups of young adults: percussionists, vocalists, and non-musician controls. We hypothesize that primary instrument engenders selective enhancements reflecting the most salient acoustic features to that instrument, whereas cognitive functions are enhanced regardless of instrument. Consistent with our hypotheses, percussionists show more precise encoding of the fast-changing acoustic features of speech than non-musicians, whereas vocalists have better frequency discrimination and show stronger encoding of speech harmonics than non-musicians. There were no strong advantages to specialization in sight-reading vs. improvisation. These effects represent subtle nuances to the signature since the musician groups do not differ from each other in these measures. Interestingly, percussionists outperform both non-musicians and vocalists in inhibitory control. Follow-up analyses reveal that within the vocalists and non-musicians, better proficiency on an instrument other than voice is correlated with better inhibitory control. Taken together, these outcomes suggest the more widespread engagement of motor systems during instrumental practice may be an important factor for enhancements in inhibitory control, consistent with evidence for overlapping neural circuitry involved in both motor and cognitive control. These findings contribute to the ongoing refinement of the musician signature of expertise and may help to inform the use of music in training and intervention to strengthen cognitive function.

Got Rhythm? Better Inhibitory Control Is Linked with More Consistent Drumming and Enhanced Neural Tracking of the Musical Beat in Adult Percussionists and Nonpercussionists

“…Percussionists outperformed the nonpercussionists on inhibitory control, t(34) = −3.336, p = .002, d = 1.137 (percussionists: M = 113.13, SD = 14.01; nonpercussionists: M = 94.45, SD = 18.54), consistent with our previous findings in an overlapping data set (Slater et al, 2017). The percussionists were also less variable in their drumming than the nonpercussionists: self-paced: t (34 Given that the drumming measures were significantly correlated with each other, these measures were combined together into a drumming variability composite score for correlational analyses (the composite was calculated as the mean value of coefficient scores across drumming conditions: selfpaced, paced, and continuation).…”

“…The specific advantage for percussionists compared with vocalists from our previous study suggests that engagement with music alone may not be sufficient (Slater et al, 2017); however, this effect could still be due to the relative emphasis on rhythmic structure versus pitch or harmonic elements in a percussionists' practice. It therefore remains unknown whether it is engagement with rhythmic structure or the specific motor activities involved in drumming that may engender these effects.…”

“…We set out to investigate inhibitory control through the lens of rhythmic expertise, building from our recent discovery of a percussionist advantage for inhibitory control (Slater et al, 2017). We found that more consistent performance on simple drumming tasks is associated with better scores in both inhibitory control and selective attention, across a range of rhythmic expertise.…”

“…On the basis of our previous finding that percussionists outperformed both vocalists and nonmusicians in inhibitory control (Slater et al, 2017), the nonpercussionist group included vocalists (n = 7) and nonmusicians (n = 13). Percussionists had been actively playing for at least the past 5 years, with drums/percussion as their primary instrument, based on self-report.…”

“…Attention and inhibitory control work in tandem in adults, although inhibitory control emerges later in development (Durston et al, 2002;Zelazo & Frye, 1998), suggesting somewhat dissociable mechanisms. We recently revealed an inhibitory control advantage in adult percussionists compared with vocalists matched on extent of musical practice (Slater, Azem, Nicol, Swedenborg, & Kraus, 2017). No such advantage was observed in attention performance, suggesting that rhythmic expertise may be of particular relevance to the mechanisms of inhibitory control.…”