Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
School of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, TX, USA.
Sci Rep. 2023 Feb 14;13(1):2657. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-29733-3.
Musical training has been associated with various cognitive benefits, one of which is enhanced speech perception. However, most findings have been based on musicians taking part in ongoing music lessons and practice. This study thus sought to determine whether the musician advantage in pitch perception in the language domain extends to individuals who have ceased musical training and practice. To this end, adult active musicians (n = 22), former musicians (n = 27), and non-musicians (n = 47) were presented with sentences spoken in a native language, English, and a foreign language, French. The final words of the sentences were either prosodically congruous (spoken at normal pitch height), weakly incongruous (pitch was increased by 25%), or strongly incongruous (pitch was increased by 110%). Results of the pitch discrimination task revealed that although active musicians outperformed former musicians, former musicians outperformed non-musicians in the weakly incongruous condition. The findings suggest that the musician advantage in pitch perception in speech is retained to some extent even after musical training and practice is discontinued.
音乐训练与各种认知益处有关，其中之一是增强言语感知。然而，大多数发现都是基于正在接受持续音乐课程和练习的音乐家。因此，本研究旨在确定在语言领域中，音高感知方面的音乐家优势是否扩展到已经停止音乐训练和练习的个体。为此，成年活跃音乐家（n=22）、前音乐家（n=27）和非音乐家（n=47）被呈现以母语英语和外语法语说出的句子。句子的最后一个词要么是韵律一致的（以正常音高高度说出），要么是弱韵律不一致的（音高升高 25%），要么是强韵律不一致的（音高升高 110%）。音高辨别任务的结果表明，尽管活跃的音乐家表现优于前音乐家，但在前音乐家在弱韵律不一致的情况下表现优于非音乐家。研究结果表明，即使在音乐训练和练习停止后，音乐家在言语感知中的音高优势在某种程度上仍然保留。
