Influence of musical training on sensitivity to temporal fine structure.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to extend the findings that temporal fine structure encoding is altered in musicians by examining sensitivity to temporal fine structure (TFS) in an alternative (non-Western) musician model that is rarely adopted--Indian classical music.


METHODS
The sensitivity to TFS was measured by the ability to discriminate two complex tones that differed in TFS but not in envelope repetition rate.


METHODS
Sixteen South Indian classical (Carnatic) musicians and 28 non-musicians with normal hearing participated in this study.


RESULTS
Musicians have significantly lower relative frequency shift at threshold in the TFS task compared to non-musicians. A significant negative correlation was observed between years of musical experience and relative frequency shift at threshold in the TFS task. Test-retest repeatability of thresholds in the TFS tasks was similar for both musicians and non-musicians.


CONCLUSIONS
The enhanced performance of the Carnatic-trained musicians suggests that the musician advantage for frequency and harmonicity discrimination is not restricted to training in Western classical music, on which much of the previous research on musical training has narrowly focused. The perceptual judgments obtained from non-musicians were as reliable as those of musicians.
* Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders, New Mexico State University , Las Cruces, NM , USA.
Srikanta K
SK
Mishra
Manasa R
MR
Panda
Swapna
S
Raj
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
Carnatic music; Temporal fine structure; phase-locking