title: Musicians' edge: A comparison of auditory processing, cognitive abilities and statistical learning.
abstract: It has been hypothesized that musical expertise is associated with enhanced auditory processing and cognitive abilities. Recent research has examined the relationship between musicians' advantage and implicit statistical learning skills. In the present study, we assessed a variety of auditory processing skills, cognitive processing skills, and statistical learning (auditory and visual forms) in age-matched musicians (N = 17) and non-musicians (N = 18). Musicians had significantly better performance than non-musicians on frequency discrimination, and backward digit span. A key finding was that musicians had better auditory, but not visual, statistical learning than non-musicians. Performance on the statistical learning tasks was not correlated with performance on auditory and cognitive measures. Musicians' superior performance on auditory (but not visual) statistical learning suggests that musical expertise is associated with an enhanced ability to detect statistical regularities in auditory stimuli.
authors: Department of Linguistics, Australian Hearing Hub, 16 University Avenue, Macquarie University, New South Wales, 2109, Australia; The HEARing CRC, 550 Swanston Street, Audiology, Hearing and Speech Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Level 3, Australian Hearing Hub, 16 University Avenue, Macquarie University, New South Wales, 2109, Australia. Electronic address: pragati.mandikal-vasuki@mq.edu.au.
authors: Pragati Rao
authors: PR
authors: Mandikal Vasuki
authors: Department of Linguistics, Australian Hearing Hub, 16 University Avenue, Macquarie University, New South Wales, 2109, Australia; The HEARing CRC, 550 Swanston Street, Audiology, Hearing and Speech Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia.
authors: Mridula
authors: M
authors: Sharma
authors: Department of Linguistics, Australian Hearing Hub, 16 University Avenue, Macquarie University, New South Wales, 2109, Australia; The HEARing CRC, 550 Swanston Street, Audiology, Hearing and Speech Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Level 3, Australian Hearing Hub, 16 University Avenue, Macquarie University, New South Wales, 2109, Australia.
authors: Katherine
authors: K
authors: Demuth
authors: The HEARing CRC, 550 Swanston Street, Audiology, Hearing and Speech Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia; Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, 75 East St, Lidcombe, 1825, Australia.
authors: Joanne
authors: J
authors: Arciuli
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attention; Auditory processing; Digit span; Musicians; Statistical learning