Cognitive and academic benefits of music training with children: A multilevel meta-analysis

Abstract

Music training has repeatedly been claimed to positively impact children's cognitive skills and academic achievement (literacy and mathematics). This claim relies on the assumption that engaging in intellectually demanding activities fosters particular domain-general cognitive skills, or even general intelligence. The present meta-analytic review (N = 6,984, k = 254, m = 54) shows that this belief is incorrect. Once the quality of study design is controlled for, the overall effect of music training programs is null (g ≈ 0) and highly consistent across studies (τ 2 ≈ 0). Results of Bayesian analyses employing distributional assumptions (informative priors) derived from previous research in cognitive training corroborate these conclusions. Small statistically significant overall effects are obtained only in those studies implementing no random allocation of participants and employing non-active controls (g ≈ 0.200, p < .001). Interestingly, music training is ineffective regardless of the type of outcome measure (e.g., verbal, non-verbal, speed-related, etc.), participants' age, and duration of training. Furthermore, we note that, beyond metaanalysis of experimental studies, a considerable amount of cross-sectional evidence indicates that engagement in music has no impact on people's non-music cognitive skills or academic achievement. We conclude that researchers' optimism about the benefits of music training is empirically unjustified and stems from misinterpretation of the empirical data and, possibly, confirmation bias.

What Makes Musical Prodigies?

“…We found no evidence of superior intelligence or exceptional working memory in prodigies compared to other musicians, nor did we observe heightened cognitive abilities in musicians compared to non-musicians. The latter finding is in line with a recent meta-analysis obtaining no evidence for a causal effect of musical training on general cognitive abilities (Sala and Gobet, 2020). Even though most prodigies in our sample (68%) were tested as adults, age of testing does not necessarily undermine the findings.…”

Near and far transfer: Is music special?

“…Far transfer is rare to occur, and a recent meta-analysis suggests that music is no exception. The overall effect of musical training on cognition was shown to be null when considering studies with active control groups or implemented randomization procedures (Sala & Gobet, 2020). The present paper demonstrates that this finding is based in part on the failure to differentiate near and far transfer, with near transfer effect sizes being selectively excluded for musical training groups, but not for active control groups.…”

“…Although numerous statistical procedures are available, their outcome can be based on several decisions performed without double blindness in an a posteriori process. Our present paper illustrates this limitation by showing how the authors' decisions led to underestimate far-transfer effects for musical training (Sala & Gobet, 2020). Using open science resources of their publication (https://osf.io/rquye), we revisited their analysis by using their program and data pool and reached a rather different conclusion.…”

“…The majority of these studies (i.e., 30) was then combined with 13 more recent studies in Sala and Gobet (2019b), leading to 43 studies, 204 effects size and 3,780 participants. Finally, a selection of these studies was combined with eleven new studies in a multilevel meta-analysis, including 54 studies, 254 effect sizes and 6,984 participants, which will be the focus of our present paper (Sala & Gobet, 2020). Another recent meta-analysis (Cooper, 2020) was run with 21 studies and 100 effect sizes (numerous had been also included in Sala & Gobet, 2017b.…”

“…Neither age, duration of training, and outcome measures were found to have a significant contribution. As a main outcome, the authors stated that "researchers' optimism about the benefits of music training is empirically unjustified and stems from misinterpretation of the empirical data and, possibly, confirmation bias" (Sala & Gobet, 2020, page 1429. This finding is consistent with their previous conclusions, summarized as "Music is over" (Sala & Gobet, 2017b) and "Elvis has left the building" (Sala & Gobet, 2019b).…”