Abstract
We conducted a longitudinal study with 32 nonmusician children over
9 months to determine 1) whether functional differences between musician
and nonmusician children reflect specific predispositions for music
or result from musical training and 2) whether musical training improves
nonmusical brain functions such as reading and linguistic pitch processing.
Event-related brain potentials were recorded while 8-year-old children
performed tasks designed to test the hypothesis that musical training
improves pitch processing not only in music but also in speech. Following
the first testing sessions nonmusician children were pseudorandomly
assigned to music or to painting training for 6 months and were tested
again after training using the same tests. After musical (but not
painting) training, children showed enhanced reading and pitch discrimination
abilities in speech. Remarkably, 6 months of musical training thus
suffices to significantly improve behavior and to influence the development
of neural processes as reflected in specific pattern of brain waves.
These results reveal positive transfer from music to speech and highlight
the influence of musical training. Finally, they demonstrate brain
plasticity in showing that relatively short periods of training have
strong consequences on the functional organization of the children's
brain.
- acoustic
- development,child,female,humans,language,longitudinal
- discrimination,pitch
- discrimination:
- factors,aptitude,aptitude:
- growth
- methods,age
- physiology
- physiology,brain,brain:
- physiology,pitch
- physiology,reading,speech,speech:
- plasticity,neuronal
- plasticity:
- stimulation,acoustic
- stimulation:
- studies,male,music,neuronal
- \&
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