Effects of Early Musical Training on Musical and Linguistic Syntactic Abilities

Music and language are distinct auditory domains serving different communicative uses. These differences may be less apparent in infants, and similar learning mechanisms may be applied in the syntactic development of both domains. By using a harmonic priming paradigm, this study revealed that 4‐ to 5‐year‐old children have implicit knowledge of Western harmony. Musical training affected response times and accuracy in a timbre identification task, but not the magnitude of the harmonic priming effect. Children with musical training showed enhanced language abilities, particularly in morphologic rule formation and memory for words.

[1]  S. Trehub,et al.  Infant music perception: Domain-general or domain-specific mechanisms? , 2006, Cognition.

[2]  G. Schlaug,et al.  Effects of Music Training on the Child's Brain and Cognitive Development , 2005, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[3]  Stefan Koelsch,et al.  Interaction between Syntax Processing in Language and in Music: An ERP Study , 2005, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[4]  Stefan Koelsch,et al.  Children with Specific Language Impairment Also Show Impairment of Music-syntactic Processing , 2008, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[5]  J. Bharucha,et al.  Modularity in musical processing: the automaticity of harmonic priming. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[6]  R. Kakigi,et al.  One year of musical training affects development of auditory cortical-evoked fields in young children. , 2006, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[7]  Mireille Besson,et al.  Musician Children Detect Pitch Violations in Both Music and Language Better than Nonmusician Children: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Approaches , 2006, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[8]  Stefan Treue,et al.  Visual attention: of features and transparent surfaces , 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[9]  R. Jackendoff.  Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution , 2002 .

[10]  Hannelore Grimm,et al.  Sprachentwicklungstest für drei- bis fünfjährige Kinder (SETK 3-5) , 2002 .

[11]  Aniruddh D. Patel,et al.  Structural integration in language and music: Evidence for a shared system , 2009, Memory & cognition.

[12]  Betty Ann Levy,et al.  Relations among musical skills, phonological processing, and early reading ability in preschool children. , 2002, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[13]  Antoine J. Shahin,et al.  Enhancement of auditory cortical development by musical experience in children , 2004, Neuroreport.

[14]  E. Bigand,et al.  Are we “experienced listeners”? A review of the musical capacities that do not depend on formal musical training , 2006, Cognition.

[15]  E. Schellenberg,et al.  Music Lessons Enhance IQ , 2004, Psychological science.

[16]  Lauren Stewart,et al.  Do musicians have different brains? , 2008, Clinical medicine.

[17]  Ellen Winner,et al.  Are there pre-existing neural, cognitive, or motoric markers for musical ability? , 2005, Brain and Cognition.

[18]  Z. Harris,et al.  Foundations of language , 1941 .

[19]  Aniruddh D. Patel,et al.  Language, music, syntax and the brain , 2003, Nature Neuroscience.

[20]  E. Schellenberg,et al.  Children's implicit knowledge of harmony in Western music. , 2005, Developmental science.

[21]  Vesa Välimäki,et al.  Musical aptitude and second language pronunciation skills in school-aged children: Neural and behavioral evidence , 2008, Brain Research.

[22]  L. Trainor,et al.  Music acquisition: effects of enculturation and formal training on development , 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[23]  J. Zacks.  Neuroimaging Studies of Mental Rotation: A Meta-analysis and Review , 2008, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[24]  Kathryn Vaughn,et al.  Music and Mathematics: Modest Support for the Oft-Claimed Relationship. , 2000 .

[25]  A. Friederici,et al.  Children Processing Music: Electric Brain Responses Reveal Musical Competence and Gender Differences , 2003, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.