Do Musicians Have Better Mnemonic and Executive Performance Than Actors? Influence of Regular Musical or Theater Practice in Adults and in the Elderly

Abstract

The effects of musical practice on cognition are well established yet rarely compared with other kinds of artistic training or expertise. This study aims to compare the possible effect of musical and theater regular practice on cognition across the lifespan. Both of these artistic activities require many hours of individual or collective training in order to reach an advanced level. This process requires the interaction between higher-order cognitive functions and several sensory modalities (auditory, verbal, visual and motor), as well as regular learning of new pieces. This study included participants with musical or theater practice, and healthy controls matched for age (18-84 years old) and education. The objective was to determine whether specific practice in these activities had an effect on cognition across the lifespan, and a protective influence against undesirable cognitive outcomes associated with aging. All participants underwent a battery of cognitive tasks that evaluated processing speed, executive function, fluency, working memory, verbal and visual long-term memories, and non-verbal reasoning abilities. Results showed that music and theater artistic practices were strongly associated with cognitive enhancements. Participants with musical practice were better in executive functioning, working memory and non-verbal reasoning, whereas participants with regular acting practice had better long-term verbal memory and fluency performance. Thus, taken together, results suggest a differential effect of these artistic practices on cognition across the lifespan. Advanced age did not seem to reduce the benefit, so future studies should focus on the hypothetical protective effects of artistic practice against cognitive decline.

Musical Activity During Life Is Associated With Multi-Domain Cognitive and Brain Benefits in Older Adults

“…More precisely, participants with musical activity outperformed the matched controls in global cognition and multiple cognitive domains including working memory, executive functions, language and visuospatial abilities. These findings agree with a body of studies, suggesting that active participation in musical activity is associated with higher-order cognitive abilities in OA, based on correlational (Hanna-Pladdy and MacKay, 2011;Hanna-Pladdy and Gajewski, 2012;Mansens et al, 2018;Groussard et al, 2020) and intervention/training (Bugos et al, 2007;Seinfeld et al, 2013;Worschech et al, 2021) studies. A recent meta-analysis of active musical training further demonstrates a small but measurable benefit of this leisure-time activity on cognitive functioning in OA with mild cognitive impairment and dementia (Dorris et al, 2021).…”

Lifelong musical activity is associated with multi-domain cognitive and brain benefits in older adults

“…More precisely, superior cognitive abilities were found in global cognition and multiple cognitive domains including working memory, executive functions, language and visuospatial abilities in the musically active older people, with the largest effect size seen for working memory. These findings directly support and expand previous studies, showing that playing a musical instrument may preserve higher-order cognitive skills that typically decline in older adults 14,15,33,34 . By contrast, we did not identify benefits of musical activity on learning and memory, although these must be perceived as essential cognitive skill involved in playing music.…”

Musical instrument engagement across the life course and episodic memory in late life: An analysis of 60 years of longitudinal data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

“…Musical play in adulthood appeared to be relatively stable for those who never played and those who were always engaged, but we were not able to separately untangle these effects. Prior studies have demonstrated positive associations between current/active musical practice and executive functioning [ 26 , 46 ]. Yet, we did not find large differences in the risk of stroke, the most reliably measured cause of declines in executive functioning that are independent of memory declines, potentially suggesting that associations with executive functioning could replicate those shown here.…”

“…Yet, we did not find large differences in the risk of stroke, the most reliably measured cause of declines in executive functioning that are independent of memory declines, potentially suggesting that associations with executive functioning could replicate those shown here. While the current investigation did not examine these mechanisms, it is possible that current musical practice may additionally improve memory performance by strengthening executive function in older adults [ 46 ].…”