Musical Training Effect on Reading Musical Notation: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Musical training enhances a range of non-musical cognitive functions, including visuospatial abilities. The aim of this study was to explore which event-related potential (ERP) components were enhanced or reduced as a result of musical training. Both electrophysiological and behavioral methods were...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Perceptual and motor skills 2012-08, Vol.115 (1), p.7-17
Main Authors: Lee, Horng-Yih, Lei, Sot-Fu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Attention - physiology
Cognition & reasoning
Comparative analysis
Electroencephalography - instrumentation
Electroencephalography - methods
Electrooculography - instrumentation
Electrooculography - methods
Evoked Potentials - physiology
Evoked Potentials, Auditory - physiology
Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology
Female
Humans
Male
Music
Music - psychology
Neuropsychological Tests
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Pitch Perception - physiology
Professional Competence
Sensory perception
Teaching
Time Perception - physiology
Visual task performance
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Musical training enhances a range of non-musical cognitive functions, including visuospatial abilities. The aim of this study was to explore which event-related potential (ERP) components were enhanced or reduced as a result of musical training. Both electrophysiological and behavioral methods were used to compare musicians and non-musicians in the processing of pitch and duration when reading single musical notes. It was observed that in the early stage of note reading, the musician/non-musician differences emerged in the latency range of the N1 and N2. The N1 component was enhanced; in contrast, the N2 component was reduced in musicians. It is possible that musicians receive auditory meanings from visual music notations, so they therefore did not find it necessary to spend more resources on executing spatial attention than non-musicians do during pitch processing.
ISSN:0031-5125
1558-688X
DOI:10.2466/22.11.24.PMS.115.4.7-17