Academic Unit of Human Communication, Learning, and Development, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong; Speech and Music Perception Laboratory, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong.
Department of Psychology, University of New Brunswick Saint John.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2025 Jan;249:106069. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106069. Epub 2024 Sep 18.
Motivated by theories of music-to-language transfer, we investigated whether and how musicianship benefits phonological and lexical prosodic awareness in first language (L1) Cantonese and second language (L2) English. We assessed 86 Cantonese-English bilingual children on rhythmic sensitivity, pitch sensitivity, nonverbal intelligence, inhibitory control, working memory, Cantonese phonological awareness, Cantonese tone awareness, English phonological awareness, and English stress awareness. Based on their prior music learning experience, we classified the children as musicians and non-musicians. The musicians performed better than the non-musicians on Cantonese phonological awareness, Cantonese tone awareness, and English phonological awareness. In addition, the musicians had superior pitch sensitivity, nonverbal intelligence, inhibitory control, and working memory than the non-musicians. For Cantonese and English phonological awareness, neither cognitive abilities nor pitch and rhythmic sensitivities turned out to be a unique predictor. However, working memory uniquely predicted Cantonese tone awareness, with age, rhythmic sensitivity, and pitch sensitivity controlled. From a theoretical perspective, our findings on Cantonese tone awareness favors the cognitive perspective of music-to-language transfer, in which working memory enhancement could explain the musicians' superior performance in Cantonese tone awareness. However, our findings on phonological awareness do not favor the cognitive perspective, nor do they favor the perceptual perspective, in which enhanced rhythmic and pitch sensitivities could explain musicians' advantage.
受音乐到语言迁移理论的启发，我们调查了音乐才能是否以及如何有益于母语（粤语）和第二语言（英语）的音韵和词汇韵律意识。我们评估了 86 名粤语-英语双语儿童的节奏感、音高感、非言语智力、抑制控制、工作记忆、粤语语音意识、粤语声调意识、英语语音意识和英语重音意识。根据他们之前的音乐学习经验，我们将儿童分为音乐家和非音乐家。音乐家在粤语语音意识、粤语声调意识和英语语音意识方面的表现优于非音乐家。此外，音乐家在音高感、非言语智力、抑制控制和工作记忆方面优于非音乐家。对于粤语和英语的语音意识，认知能力、音高和节奏敏感性都不是唯一的预测因素。然而，工作记忆可以独特地预测粤语声调意识，同时控制年龄、节奏敏感性和音高敏感性。从理论角度来看，我们关于粤语声调意识的发现支持音乐到语言迁移的认知观点，即工作记忆的增强可以解释音乐家在粤语声调意识方面的优异表现。然而，我们关于语音意识的发现既不支持认知观点，也不支持感知观点，即增强的节奏和音高敏感性可以解释音乐家的优势。
