Musicians, Background Music, and Cognition 173

T HE E FFECT OF B ACKGROUND M USIC ON C OGNITIVE P ERFORMANCE

IN M USICIANS AND N ONMUSICIANS

L UCY L. M. P ATSTON & L YNETTE J. T IPPETT 2009; Münte, Altenmüller, & Jäncke, 2002; Schlaug,
The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Jäncke, Huang, & Steinmetz, 1995; Stewart, 2008).
Relatively few studies, however, have attempted to relate
THERE IS DEBATE ABOUT THE EXTENT OF OVERLAP BETWEEN these neural differences to behavioral correlates.
music and language processing in the brain and Most studies that have investigated associations be-
whether these processes are functionally independent tween music training and cognitive abilities have con-
in expert musicians. A language comprehension task centrated on children, typically comparing participants
and a visuospatial search task were administered to who receive music lessons to those who do not. Music
36 expert musicians and 36 matched nonmusicians in training is associated with enhanced cognitive abilities
conditions of silence and piano music played correctly that extend beyond cognitive processes related directly
and incorrectly. Musicians performed more poorly on to music, such as mathematical abilities (Cheek & Smith,
the language comprehension task in the presence of 1999; but see also Forgeard, Winner, Norton, & Schlaug,
background music compared to silence, but there was 2008; Haimson, Swain, & Winner, 2011), visuospatial
no effect of background music on the musicians’ per- abilities (Bilhartz, Bruhn, & Olson, 2000; Graziano,
formance on the visuospatial task. In contrast, the Peterson, & Shaw, 1999; Rauscher, Shaw, & Levine, 1997;
performance of nonmusicians was not affected by Rauscher & Zupan, 2000), and literacy (Forgeard et al.,
music on either task. The findings challenge the view 2008; Gromko, 2005; Moreno et al., 2009; Schlaug,
that music and language are functionally independent Norton, Overy, & Winner, 2005; Standley & Hughes,
in expert musicians, and instead suggest that when 1997). Unfortunately, in most studies that use this quasi-
musicians process music they recruit a network that experimental approach, alternative explanations cannot
overlaps with the network used in language processing. be ruled out. For example, superior performance by
Additionally, musicians outperformed nonmusicians those receiving lessons may be due to the positive effects
on both tasks, reflecting either a general cognitive of extra instruction or to the effects of extra attention by
advantage in musicians or enhancement of more an adult. Alternatively, music lessons may induce gener-
specific cognitive abilities such as processing speed or ally heightened mood and motivation, which, in turn,
executive functioning. affect cognition and cognitive development. Children
with above-average cognitive abilities may also be more
Received December 2, 2010, accepted July 24, 2011.
likely than other children to take music lessons
Key words: music expertise, music and language, (Schellenberg, 2006, 2011).
music and functional independence, language Schellenberg (2004) addressed these alternative expla-
processing, cognitive processing nations by including a control group that received drama
lessons when investigating the impact of music training
on general intellectual ability. Children (144 6-year olds)
were randomly assigned to the different groups, which

P
ERFORMING MUSIC IS AN ACTIVITY THAT TRAINS allowed for inferences of causation. The drama group
complex cognitive and motor skills. Musicians received the same potential beneficial side effects of
typically begin to study and practice their music lessons, such as attentional input from an adult
instrument/s in childhood when the potential for neu- and enhanced motivation, but without the music. The
ral plasticity is at its peak. It is thus not surprising that subsequent relative increase in general full-scale IQ
a significant literature points to anatomical and func- (measured by the WISC-III) of both music groups when
tional differences between the brains of expert musi- combined (keyboard and voice lessons) compared to the
cians and nonmusicians (Gaab & Schlaug, 2003; Jäncke, drama group could not, therefore, be ascribed to more

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174 Lucy L. M. Patston & Lynette J. Tippett

positive experiences with adults. The results of this study now outperformed the nonmusicians on tests of flexibil-
allowed for the inference that just 36 weeks of music ity of closure and perceptual speed. In both studies, mul-
training (with minimal time spent practicing at home) tiple tests inflated the probability of finding some group
causes a small but reliable increase in full-scale IQ in differences by chance.
children. There is substantial evidence that nonmusicians’
Norton et al. (2005) conducted a longitudinal study brains are different from musicians’ brains, which have,
examining associations between music training and cog- for example, atypical lateralization of function (Jäncke,
nitive and brain development. They asked whether there 2009; Stewart, 2008). We have previously demonstrated
are pre-existing cognitive and/or anatomical differences differences in the neural organization of nonmusical
in children who practice music and those who do not. functions in expert adult musicians. In an EEG study,
They also sought to document the cognitive and neural expert musicians displayed transfer of visual informa-
development of all the children (who were not randomly tion as fast from right-to-left hemispheres as from left-
assigned), regardless of whether they dropped out of les- to-right, whereas nonmusicians showed the standard
sons or went on to become musically proficient. At base- faster transfer of visual information from right-to-left
line, there were no cognitive (visual-spatial, verbal, (Patston, Kirk, Rolfe, Corballis, & Tippett, 2007). Expert
music perception), motoric, or structural brain differ- musicians also were more likely than nonmusicians to
ences between those intending to start music lessons and attend equally to the left and right sides of space when
those without such intentions. In other words, at the processing visuospatial stimuli (Patston, Corballis, Hogg,
outset of lessons the two groups could not be differenti- & Tippett, 2006; Patston, Hogg, & Tippett, 2007). These
ated. In a follow-up study with a subsample of the same findings suggest that in addition to generally above-
children, structural brain changes were evident in musi- average performance on many cognitive tasks, extensive
cally relevant areas (motoric and auditory) among chil- music training from a young age may alter the underly-
dren with 15 months of music training (Hyde et al., ing neural organization of nonmusical cognitive abilities.
2009). These children, however, did not show greater Because the right hemisphere is typically dominant for
visuospatial or verbal gains when compared to the non- visuospatial processing (Fink et al., 2000; Geschwind &
music group. As the authors acknowledged, 15 months Galaburda, 1985; Heilman, Jeong, & Finney, 2004;
of training may not be long enough to develop detect- Mattingley, Bradshaw, Nettleton, & Bradshaw, 1994), our
able differences on the types of cognitive tasks they ad- results imply a leftward shift in lateralization of these
ministered, although Schellenberg (2004) demonstrated functions in expert musicians. This tendency has been
cognitive effects after only 36 weeks. The failure of Hyde evident in other imaging studies (Koelsch, Fritz, Schulze,
et al. to replicate Schellenberg’s result may also have been Alsop, & Schlaug, 2005; Schneider et al., 2002; Sluming,
due to a small sample and low power rather than to a Brooks, & Howard, 2007). For instance, Schneider et al.
genuine lack of training effects. (2002) reported gray matter increases in Heschl’s gyrus
Researchers have compared the performance of musi- (an auditory processing region) in professional musi-
cally trained and untrained adults on nonmusical tasks, cians. Specifically, gray matter volume was 15% larger in
with findings frequently revealing positive associations the right hemisphere of musicians compared to nonmu-
between musical expertise and cognitive abilities (e.g., sicians, but 19% larger in the left hemisphere. Gaser and
Brochard, Dufour, & Despres, 2004; Chan, Ho, & Schlaug (2003) also reported positive correlations be-
Cheung, 1998; Nering, 2002; Overy, 1998). Like the stud- tween music expertise and an increase in volume of sev-
ies with children, however, these studies with adults are eral areas of gray matter, including the left cerebellum,
often based on self-selected groups that may differ in left Heschl’s gyrus, and left frontal gyrus.
more ways than music experience. Nevertheless, when There is also evidence that music processing itself is
Brandler and Rammsayer (2003) used similarly high- more left lateralized in musicians than in nonmusicians.
functioning participants in their control group (i.e., all Music processing is coarsely right hemisphere dominant
participants were graduate students), nonmusicians out- in neurologically typical individuals (Kimura, 1964;
performed the musicians on all four of Cattell’s Culture Milner, 1962), although this view is rather oversimplified
Free Intelligence (short version) subtests, while musi- (Peretz & Zatorre, 2005). Yet whereas rhythm is processed
cians outperformed nonmusicians on a single test of primarily by the left hemisphere (Di Pietro, Laganaro,
verbal memory. In a later study, Helmbold, Rammsayer, Leemann, & Schnider, 2004: Vignolo, 2003), most other
and Altenmüller (2005) doubled their participant pool aspects of music, such as pitch, contour, meter, melody,
and all the previously significant differences between perception, imagery, and emotion, are processed primar-
groups became nonsignificant. The musicians, however, ily by the right hemisphere in nonmusicians (Blood,
 Musicians, Background Music, and Cognition 175

Zatorre, Bermudez, & Evans, 1999; Brown, Martinez, & and congenital amusia who show dissociation between
Parsons, 2004; Liégeois-Chauvel, Peretz, Babaï, Laguitton, music and language abilities, which is consistent with
& Chauvel, 1998; Penhune, Zatorre, & Feindel, 1999; modularity, or functional independence, of language and
Tramo, Shah, & Braida, 2002; Zatorre & Halpern, 1993; music (Peretz, 2001, 2009; Peretz & Coltheart, 2003).
Zatorre & Samson, 1991). In musicians, however, the Nevertheless, other findings suggest that the networks
dominance of the right hemisphere for music processing underlying the processing of music and language may
seems to be less pronounced. not be independent, either in musicians (Patel, 2003;
In an early study, Bever and Chiarello (1974) reported Patel, Gibson, Ratner, Besson, & Holcomb, 1998; Sluming
that musicians have a right ear advantage when process- et al., 2002) or nonmusicians (Koelsch et al., 2002; Maess,
ing musical stimuli, pointing to left hemisphere domi- Koelsch, Gunter, & Friederici, 2001). One way to deter-
nance. The authors speculated that this was due to mine whether the processing of music and language
musicians’ more analytical approach to music listening. overlap in musicians, and thus perhaps share common
Although these results have not been replicated, other underlying processing networks, would be to test for
studies using EEG and fMRI have provided evidence cognitive interference when processing a language task
consistent with the findings of Bever and Chiarello in the presence of background music, and to investigate
(Bhattacharya & Petsche, 2001; Schmithorst & Holland, whether such interference is greater in musicians than
2003). For example, Fabbro, Brusaferro and Bava (1990) in nonmusicians.
reported that expert musicians showed left hemisphere Kämpfe, Sedlmeier and Renkewitz (2010) conducted
superiority on a manual interference tapping paradigm a meta-analysis of the literature investigating the effects
that involved tapping while singing and whistling. of background music in the general population. They
Similarly, Baumann et al. (2007) reported greater left reported small positive effects for motor behaviors, such
hemisphere activation in pianists than nonmusicians as increased running pace when listening to fast music
when listening to music. Furthermore, in an fMRI study (Edworthy & Waring, 2006), and for emotional reac-
that involved listening to music, Bangert et al. (2006) tions, such as reduced nervousness when listening to
found that compared to nonmusicians, musicians had music at work (Oldham, Cummings, Mischel, Schnidtke,
activation in a distinct network in the left hemisphere & Zhou, 1995). In contrast, there were small negative
that extended from the left primary motor cortex to impacts of background music on memory performance
frontal areas and the superior portion of Broca’s area. (e.g., de Groot, 2006; Nittono, 1997) and reading perfor-
The authors speculated that: “Maybe the simplified no- mance (e.g., Etaugh & Ptasnik, 1982). A study by
tion popular in the 70s and 80s that music processing is Freeburne and Fleischer (1952), however, (not included
generally lateralized to the right in nonmusicians, but in the Kämpfe et al. meta-analysis) found that partici-
‘switches’ to the left in the course of becoming a profes- pants read faster in the presence of music compared to
sional musician...still has some truth to it” (p. 923). silence. Although research examining the effect of back-
In sum, although it is clear from the extensive litera- ground music has been conducted for some decades, to
ture on music processing that the two hemispheres have our knowledge no studies have contrasted the cognitive
complementary roles in the perception of music, the ex- performance of musicians and nonmusicians in the
tent to which each hemisphere is involved seems to differ presence of music.
in musicians compared to nonmusicians. Some studies In the present study, musicians and nonmusicians
investigating musical expertise have also reported left- were compared on a language task (sentence compre-
ward shifts in musicians in language lateralization. For hension) and a visual task (visuospatial search) under
example, Broca’s area has been found to be larger in mu- three conditions: music played correctly, music played
sicians (Sluming et al., 2002) and used in mental rotation incorrectly, and silence. Our goal was to test whether
tasks by musicians but not by nonmusicians (Sluming, processing of music and language is functionally inde-
Brooks, Howard, Downes, & Roberts, 2007). pendent in musicians but not in nonmusicians. Because
There is great interest in the commonalities and dif- of the evidence that in musicians, music and language
ferences between music and language due to the central processing share cognitive and neural resources, we pre-
role both play in our everyday lives (Patel, 2008), and dicted that the performance of the musicians would be
many researchers have investigated the neural networks impaired on the language (but not the visuospatial) task
responsible for both domains. Currently there is debate in both music conditions, with the greatest impairment
concerning the extent of the overlap between music and in the incorrect music condition. We expected perfor-
language processing in the brain. Peretz and colleagues mance on the visuospatial task for both musicians and
have worked extensively with individuals with acquired nonmusicians to be unaffected by background music
176 Lucy L. M. Patston & Lynette J. Tippett

because visual and music processing involve separate (n = 31), and then the violin (n = 13); four members
networks. played either the flute or oboe. Three musicians played
The music-incorrect condition was included to exam- the clarinet, viola, organ, or recorder, two played the
ine whether music with “grammatical” errors played in cello, French horn, trumpet, or percussion, and one
the background would further exacerbate interference played the guitar, harpsichord, ukulele, trombone, bari-
in musicians. Although it has been found that nonmu- tone, bagpipes, cornet, or saxophone.
sicians are as proficient as musicians at detecting musi- The nonmusician group consisted of 36 participants
cal syntactic violations such as Neapolitan 6 th chords (13 males), each with fewer than 4 years of music train-
(i.e., a C# major chord in the key of C major; Koelsch ing (24 had no training at all; M = 0.86, SD = 1.27, range:
et al., 2005), musicians show more pronounced ERP 0–3). None of the nonmusicians could either play or read
responses compared to nonmusicians when hearing music. General exclusion criteria included previous seri-
these kinds of errors (Koelsch et al., 2002), and these ous brain injury or childhood epilepsy, color blindness,
responses have been localized in areas of the frontal cor- English as a second language, and formal music training
tex, especially in the left hemisphere in musicians of more than 3 years but fewer than 10 years. All par-
(Koelsch et al., 2005). Neapolitan 6th chords are quite ticipants had normal hearing.
obvious (and even humorous) when detecting these ir- The musician and nonmusician groups were matched
regularities is the main task. We aimed to investigate in terms of age, gender balance, and handedness as as-
whether more subtle syntactical errors that were irrel- sessed by the Edinburgh laterality quotient (Oldfield,
evant to the main task would be perceived by partici- 1971). There were also no significant differences between
pants, and whether such errors might selectively hinder the two groups on measures of general cognitive ability,
the performance of musicians. as assessed by a measure of verbal IQ (the National Adult
Reading Test, NART; Nelson & Willison, 1991), and a
Method measure of fluid intelligence (the Matrix Reasoning
Subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Third
Participants Edition; Wechsler, 1997; see Table 1). Matrix Reasoning
requires reasoning, problem-solving skills, and mental-
The musician group comprised 36 participants (14 manipulation ability (Tulsky, Sakolfske, & Zhu, 2003),
males) who had a minimum of 10 years of music train- and is comparable to the Raven’s Standard Progressive
ing (M = 16.33, SD = 3.57, range: 10-27). All had started Matrices (Raven, Raven, & Court, 1998).
music lessons before age 13 (M = 6.17, SD = 2.04, range:
3-12), and all had achieved at least Grade 5 from the Materials
British Royal Schools of Music in theory, voice, or an
instrument. (Grade 5 is an above average level of attain- Language comprehension task. A language comprehen-
ment in music exams that range from Grades 1 to 8.) sion task, created for this study, consisted of 144 seven-
Moreover, they could all read music and each participant word sentences that were each converted into singular
had performed music at university or at a national level. and plural forms as well as grammatically correct and
Five musicians had absolute pitch. Of the 36 musicians, incorrect versions, resulting in 576 items. Participants
35 played more than one instrument (one participant were asked to read each sentence silently and mark with
played only the piano) and 24 played three or more (M = a cross those that were grammatically incorrect, com-
3.17, SD = 1.28, range: 1-7). The most commonly played pleting as many as possible in a period of 8 min. Different
instrument was the voice (n = 33), followed by the piano sets of sentences were used in the three conditions.

TABLE 1. Demographic Characteristics of Participants in the Musician and Nonmusician Groups.

Musicians (N = 36) Nonmusicians (N = 36) Statistical values

Age 23.47 (4.91) 24.14 (7.10) t(70) = .46, p = .64
14 males 13 males
Gender χ(1) = .06, p = .81
22 females 23 females
Laterality Quotient 73.72 (53.09) 71.15 (56.87) t(70) = .20, p = .84
NART (2nd ed.) 110.89 (6.94) 108.28 (6.15) t(70) = 1.69, p = .10
Matrix Reasoning (WAIS-III) 15.83 (1.61) 15.28 (1.98) t(70) = 1.31, p = .20
 Musicians, Background Music, and Cognition 177

Visuospatial search task. A visuospatial search task, also the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (Oldfield, 1971),
created for this study, comprised 360 novel designs made and 5) a questionnaire containing items concerning
up of 12 geometric shapes and six, seven, or eight colored demographic variables and music background and
dots (red, blue, green, and yellow) arranged evenly within achievement. Musician participants who claimed to have
an 8 cm x 8 cm box (see Figure 1, color plate section). absolute pitch also completed a test adapted from
Participants were required to locate a difference between Baharloo, Johnston, Service, Gitschier, and Freimer
two nearly identical visual designs placed side by side and (1998) to verify their status. All met the criterion for
to indicate the quadrant in which this difference appeared. absolute pitch.
They were told that in the right-hand design one colored All participants completed the two tasks (language
dot could have moved or changed color in comparison to comprehension and visuospatial search) in each of the
the left-hand design in one of the four quadrants, which three conditions (silence, music-correct, and music-
were distinguished by dashed lines. They were also given a incorrect). Counterbalancing of conditions was arranged
template to refer to with the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 typed by a Latin square procedure and tasks within blocks of
into the corresponding quadrants. Participants completed conditions were alternated between the language and
as many items as possible in a period of 8 min. Different visual tasks. After every task accompanied by music, par-
sets of designs were used in the three conditions. ticipants were asked “Did you notice anything about the
music?” and brief responses were recorded qualitatively.
Experimental Conditions These responses were then coded as positive or negative
instances of mistake perception.
All participants completed the two tasks in each of three
experimental conditions: while listening to the music Results
played correctly, the music played with errors, and in
silence. Four piano pieces were used in the study: 1) The dependent variables represented the number of cor-
Phantasie in C minor by Mozart, 2) ‘O Lieb’ in A ♭. major rect items completed on the language comprehension
by Lizst, 3) Sonata Opus 53 second movement in C and visuospatial search tasks. Separate mixed-design
major by Beethoven, and 4) Sonata Opus 54 in F major ANOVAs were conducted for each task with condition
by Beethoven. The music-incorrect condition consisted (silence, music-correct, and music-incorrect) as the re-
of the same piano pieces as in the music-correct condi- peated measure and group (musicians and nonmusi-
tion but each piece was contaminated with harmonically cians) as the between-subjects factor. Musicians with
incorrect notes, or “mistakes,” placed at approximately absolute pitch performed no differently from other mu-
regular intervals throughout the piece. It was hypothe- sicians and were included in the musician group for all
sized that incorrectly played music would further exacer- analyses.
bate any effect seen in the musician group during task For the language comprehension task, a main effect of
completion. Before participating in the study, partici- group, F(1, 70) = 7.33, p = .01, ηp2 = .10, indicated that
pants were asked to listen to a CD of the four piano musicians (M = 169.94, SD = 62.78) completed more
pieces played correctly five times. This manipulation items correctly than did nonmusicians (M = 138.17,
ensured that all participants were equally exposed to the SD = 43.86). There was also a main effect of condition,
music prior to testing, at least from recent listening. F(2, 140) = 12.71, p < .001, ηp2 = .15, with significantly
reduced performance in the music-incorrect condition
Procedure (M = 143.19; SD = 51.17) compared to both the
music-correct condition (M = 155.00; SD = 5.89), p =
Participants were tested individually in a quiet room. .007, and the silence condition (M = 163.96; SD = 62.17),
Testing took between 90 and 120 min to complete and p < .001. The difference between the silence and music-
breaks were given as required. Audio screening tasks and correct conditions was only marginal, p = .08. Of par-
music conditions were played from a portable Discman ticular interest was the significant interaction between
or computer via computer speakers at a distance of one condition and group, F(2, 140) = 4.43, p = .02, ηp2 = .06.
to two meters, and were set to a comfortable listening Follow-up pairwise comparisons revealed that the musi-
level (approximately 55 dB). The participants completed cians scored higher than the nonmusicians in the condi-
five screening tasks and then the experimental tasks. The tions of silence, p = .003, and music-correct, p = .008,
screening tasks were: 1) the NART (Nelson & Willison, but not in the music-incorrect condition, p > .1.
1991), 2) the Matrix Reasoning Subtest (Wechsler, 1997), Alternative analyses revealed that the musicians com-
3) Ishihara’s test for color blindness (Ishihara, 1992), 4) pleted significantly more items in the silence than in the
178 Lucy L. M. Patston & Lynette J. Tippett

music-correct condition (p = .04), and in the music- in the music-incorrect condition, and one reported there
correct condition than in the music-incorrect condition might have been mistakes in the music-correct condition.
(p = .002). As predicted, performance of the nonmusi- Thus, the nonmusicians were not overtly aware of the
cians was unaffected by condition (see Figure 2). mistakes in the music-incorrect condition. In striking
The number of errors made by participants on the contrast, 27 of the 36 musician participants reported hav-
language comprehension task was low (M = 6.75, ing heard mistakes during one or both of the tasks in the
SD = 5.88). Because the number of errors was not music-incorrect condition. The number of musicians
normally distributed (several participants made no (n = 27) correctly identifying mistakes in either of the
errors at all), Mann-Whitney U tests were used to test tasks in the music-incorrect condition was significantly
whether there were group differences in each of the three greater than the number of nonmusicians (n = 2) identi-
conditions (music-correct, music-incorrect, silence). fying mistakes, χ2(1) = 36.09, p < .001. Six musicians
Musicians made fewer errors than nonmusicians in all thought that they had heard mistakes in the music-correct
three conditions, ps < .05. condition. Four of these were when the music-correct
On the visuospatial search task, musicians (M = 83.41, condition was presented after the music-incorrect condi-
SD = 18.08) completed significantly more items tion, however, and thus these participants may have falsely
correctly than did the nonmusicians (M = 73.54, SD = identified mistakes due to heightened expectation.
13.63), F(2, 140) = 10.16, p = .002, η p2=.13 (see
Figure 3), but there was no group by condition interac- Discussion
tion and no main effect of condition, Fs < 1. Because
many participants did not make any errors at all, Musicians and nonmusicians performed a language
Mann-Whitney U tests were again used to test whether comprehension task and a visuospatial search task
there was a group difference in errors in any of the three under three conditions: music-correct, music-incorrect,
conditions. No differences were found, ps > .20. In and silence. The ability of the musicians to process and
short, although the musicians completed more items evaluate the grammaticality of sentences was signifi-
overall than nonmusicians, neither group was affected cantly reduced when music was played in the back-
by the presence of music, whether it was played correctly ground, particularly when the music contained
or incorrectly. mistakes. By contrast, there was no effect of music
On both tasks participants were asked whether they had played either correctly or incorrectly on the musicians’
noticed anything about the music in the two music condi- performance on the visuospatial task. Moreover, the
tions. Out of the 36 nonmusicians, 34 did not report any performance of nonmusicians was not affected on
mistakes in the music-incorrect condition during either either the language or visuospatial search task by the
of the tasks, two reported there might have been mistakes presence of music played either correctly or incorrectly.

FIGURE 2. Mean number of correct items completed on the language FIGURE 3. Mean number of correct items completed on the visuo-
comprehension task in three conditions for musicians and nonmusi- spatial search task in three conditions for musicians and nonmusi-
cians. Error bars represent standard errors. cians. Error bars represent standard errors.
 Musicians, Background Music, and Cognition 179

These findings challenge the view that music and lan- Patston et al., 2006, 2007; Schellenberg, 2006; Sluming
guage are functionally independent in expert musicians, et al., 2002). While the NART and Matrix Reasoning tests
and instead suggest that when musicians process music are very good predictors of verbal and fluid intelligence,
they recruit a network that overlaps with the network respectively, it should be noted that our participants were
used during language processing. As a result, the pres- not equated on full-scale IQ, so there remains the possibil-
ence of music interfered with the efficiency of language ity that the musicians in this sample were more cognitively
processing but not with visuospatial processing. Our capable than those in the nonmusician group. Recent re-
findings suggest that for expert musicians with years of search carried out specifically to compare fluid intelli-
music training, the processing of music and the gence between musicians and nonmusicians has, on the
processing of language call upon shared cognitive and/ whole, reported null findings (Brandler & Rammsayer,
or neural resources, and thus background music inter- 2003; Helmbold et al., 2005; Schellenberg & Moreno,
feres with musicians’ ability to process language simul- 2010). In future studies, it might be preferable to admin-
taneously. The finding that musicians completed even ister the entire WAIS-III (or WAIS-IV).
fewer items when the background music contained har- Recently, Schellenberg and Moreno (2010) tested adult
monically inappropriate notes suggests that the interfer- musicians and nonmusicians on Raven’s Advanced
ence is exacerbated by the additional processing required Progressive Matrices (Raven et al., 1998) and found no
to parse grammatically incorrect music. difference between groups. We similarly found no differ-
The design of our study rules out the possibility that ence between groups on the Matrix Reasoning subtest of
the effect of background music on the language task for the WAIS-III (Wescher 1997), which is a very similar task
the musicians was due to increased general attentional involving visual abstract reasoning, problem-solving skills,
demands when music is present (cf. Kämpfe et al., 2010). and mental-manipulation ability. Perhaps the advantage
Otherwise, one might argue that the poorer performance in performance seen in the musicians on our language and
of the musicians on the language task in the music con- visuospatial tasks lies in enhanced motivation among mu-
ditions could be due to the task being more attention- sicians (cf. McAuley, Henry, & Tuft, 2011).
demanding, possibly akin to a dual-task paradigm with Processing speed has been associated with the integrity
increased demands on attentional resources. On this of white matter tracts (e.g., Roosendaal et al., 2009;
view, because the nonmusicians did not process the Wilde et al., 2006), and white matter changes have been
background music, they completed a single task— seen in studies of musicians using morphometric
undistracted—in all three conditions. This account fails (Schlaug et al., 1995) and diffusion tensor imaging
to explain, however, why musicians did not show the (Bengtsson et al., 2005; Schmithorst & Wilke, 2002).
same decrement in performance in the visuospatial task Factors such as the simultaneous bimanual requirement
when music was played. Indeed the absence of an effect to play most instruments and the need to transfer visual
of the music manipulation in this instance provides inputs from music scores to bilateral motor outputs may
strong evidence that these results are not simply reflect- stimulate myelination during music training in child-
ing a dual-task phenomenon, or, more generally, a con- hood and adolescence when plasticity is still high. This
sequence of broad attentional influences. may lead to improvements in music performance and
Another possibility is that performance in the lan- cognitive performance more generally.
guage task was affected by the music conditions because Another possible explanation of the musicians’ supe-
it was more difficult than the visuospatial search task. rior performance is that musicians have better executive
This account does not seem likely, however, because both function abilities than nonmusicians (Hannon &
groups completed considerably more items on the lan- Trainor, 2007; Schellenberg & Peretz, 2008). Bialystok
guage than the visual task. Moreover, error rates on both and DePape (2009) tested bilinguals, musicians, and
tasks were very low for both groups. control participants on the Simon task and found faster
Despite matching the musician and nonmusician reaction times for bilinguals and musicians in conditions
groups on verbal and visual intelligence, the musician where executive control (ignoring irrelevant informa-
group performed at a higher level than the nonmusician tion) was required. Bugos, Perlstein, McCrae, Brophy,
group on both the language comprehension task and the and Bedenbaugh (2007) provided older adults with
visuospatial search task. This finding is consistent with 6 months of piano lessons and reported performance
much of the literature on children and music training increases in the Trail Making Tests (Reitan & Wolfson,
(Schellenberg, 2004, 2005, 2006) and with some previous 1985) and the Digit-Symbol Coding subtest of the
findings in adult populations (Brochard et al., 2004; Chan WAIS-III (Wechsler, 1997) compared to a control group.
et al., 1998; Jakobson, Lewycky, Kilgour, & Stoesz, 2008; In one study of musically trained and untrained children
180 Lucy L. M. Patston & Lynette J. Tippett

(Schellenberg, 2011), however, there was no difference have difficulty simultaneously processing music (par-
between groups on measures of executive function ticularly incorrect music) and grammar, and we argue
despite a large between-group difference in IQ. In that this is due to competition in musicians between the
another study of musically trained and untrained chil- systems that process language and music. The results
dren of the same age (Degé, Kubicek, & Schwarzer, 2011), presented here support the hypothesis that musicians
between-group differences in executive function were process language and music using the same, or at least
evident and these differences mediated between-group overlapping, networks, and are consistent with the view
differences in IQ. In short, there is emerging (but incon- that music and language are not functionally indepen-
sistent) evidence indicating that executive function dent, at least among musicians.
abilities may be enhanced as a result of music lessons and
could, therefore, contribute positively to general cogni- Author Note
tive functioning in musicians.
In summary, the performance of musicians was nega- We would like to thank Glenn Schellenberg, Ellen
tively affected by the presence of background music Winner, and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful
compared to silence when performing a language com- comments on a previous version of the manuscript.
prehension task involving grammaticality judgements. Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to
Their performance was not, however, affected when solv- Lucy Patston, Department of Psychology, The University
ing a visuospatial search task. In contrast, the perfor- of Auckland, Level 6, Human Sciences Building,
mance of nonmusicians was not affected by background 10 Symonds Street, Private Bag 92019, Auckland,
music on either task. These results suggest that musicians New Zealand. E-mail: [email protected]

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