Cognition and music: a developmental perspective

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The goals of the proposed research are to examine (1) how music lessons affect cognitive development, and (2) how music cognition changes over development. The first series of studies will examine how training in music is associated with cognitive development. We know that music lessons are predictive of small but very general increases in intellectual ability. The association appears to be causal, with longer duration of lessons predicting larger benefits. Such associations are evident whether the outcome measures involve verbal, mathematical, or spatial abilities. They are also evident across the various subtests and indexes that comprise standardized IQ tests. These findings do not exclude the possibility, however, that music lessons affect some underlying processing mechanisms (e.g., executive functioning, working memory) more than others, and that these mechanisms have broad effects on intellectual functioning. To examine this hypothesis, children and adults will be tested with correlational methods to document pre-existing associations. A separate longitudinal experiment with children will allow for inferences of causation. Testing will involve a battery of cognitive and perceptual tests to determine whether performance on one or more tests varies as a function of musical training.