2018 Friday Poster 6437

Friday, November 2, 2018 | Poster Session I, Metcalf Small | 3pm

Musical Experience Enhances Both Pitch Perception and Non-Native Tonal Word Learning in Children and Adults
S. Tong, Y. Chan

A considerable body of empirical research suggests that musical experience and tonal language expertise enhance adults’ pitch perception in both music (e.g., Tervaniemi, Just, Koelsch, Widmann, & Schroger, 2005) and language (e.g., Cooper & Wang, 2012). Evidence also shows the facilitation effect of musical experience on adults’ tonal word learning (e.g., Wong & Perrachione, 2007). However, the impact of musical experience on tonal language listeners’ pitch perception and non-native tonal word learning in children remains unclear.

The present study addressed this question by comparing the musical and linguistic pitch perceptions, and the non-native Thai tonal word learning, of Cantonese child and adult musicians and non-musicians.

We tested four groups of native Cantonese tonal language speakers—24 child musicians (Mean age = 10.92 years), 24 child non-musicians (Mean age = 10.50 years), 24 adult musicians (Mean age = 20.92 years), and 24 adult non-musicians (Mean age = 20.67 years)— on nonverbal intelligence, working memory, musical pitch memory, non-native Thai tone identification, and non-native Thai tonal word learning.

We conducted ANCOVA analyses to examine the effect of musical training on musical and linguistic pitch perception in children and adults, with nonverbal IQ and working memory as covariates. The main effects of group was significant on pitch memory, F(3, 89) = 20.52, p < .001, η#$ = .41 (see Fig. 1), and Thai tone identification, F(3, 89) = 6.96, p < .001, η#$= .19 (see Fig. 2). The post hoc analyses indicated that musicians outperformed non- musicians regardless of age (all ps < .01). Child musicians performed better than adult non- musicians on musical pitch memory (p < .01) and on Thai tone identification (p = .06).

A two-way mixed factorial ANOVA with learning session as a within-subjects factor and group as a between-subjects factor was conducted on Thai tonal word learning performance (see Fig. 3). The main effect of learning session was not significant, F(2, 178) = 2.16, p= .119. However, the main effect of group, F(3, 89) = 36.21, p < .001, η#$ = .55, and the interaction effect between group and session, F(6, 176) = 5.88, p < .001, η#$ = .17, were both significant. For the first session, musicians significantly outperformed non-musicians regardless of age (ps < .001). For the second session, the superior learning performance of adult musicians persisted when compared to adult non-musicians (p < .001), child non- musicians (p < .001), and even child musicians (p = .063). However, child musicians outperformed child non-musicians only (p < .05). For the final session, musicians significantly outperformed non-musicians regardless of age (ps < .001).

These results demonstrate that musical experience enhances pitch processing at both simple perceptual and advanced lexical-semantic levels, and bridges the pitch processing performance gap between children and adults.

References

  1. Cooper, A., & Wang, Y. (2012). The influence of linguistic and musical experience on Cantonese word learning. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 131(6), 4756-4769.
  2. Tervaniemi, M., Just, V., Koelsch, S., Widmann, A., & Schroger, E. (2006). Pitch discrimination accuracy in musicians vs nonmusicians: An event-related potential and behavioral study. Experimental Brain Research, 161, 1-10.
  3. Wong, P. C., & Perrachione, T. K. (2007). Learning pitch patterns in lexical identification by native English-speaking adults. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28(04), 565-585