Enhanced perception of various linguistic features by musicians: A cross-linguistic study

Abstract

Two cross-linguistic experiments comparing musicians and non-musicians were performed in order to examine whether musicians have enhanced perception of specific acoustical features of speech in a second language (L2). These discrimination and identification experiments examined the perception of various speech features; namely, the timing and quality of Japanese consonants, and the quality of Dutch vowels. We found that musical experience was more strongly associated with discrimination performance rather than identification performance. The enhanced perception was observed not only with respect to L2, but also L1. It was most pronounced when tested with Japanese consonant timing. These findings suggest the following: 1) musicians exhibit enhanced early acoustical analysis of speech, 2) musical training does not equally enhance the perception of all acoustic features automatically, and 3) musicians may enjoy an advantage in the perception of acoustical features that are important in both language and music, such as pitch and timing.

The Potential Role of Music in Second Language Learning: A Review Article

“…When comparing the above four sub-themes, a certain number of observations can be made. To start with, Sadakata and Sekiyama's (2011) results are in line with Marie et al's (2011) findings from eventrelated potentials, which measured responses to the tonal processing of the Mandarin language. Although Japanese has simpler tone systems, both studies found enhanced perceptual processing and categorization of important L2 contrasts.…”

“…Next, the Posedel et al (2011) finding that the length of musical training within the musicians group was not correlated with pitch perception or Spanish productive phonology skills contradicts most previous findings as well as Sadakata and Sekiyama's (2011) results, as in their study the duration of training positively affected the accuracy of identification performance. This discrepancy could be explained by differing participants in the two studies- Posedel et al (2011) only accounted for the length of musical training, whereas Sadakata and Sekiyama (2011) All the participants performed equally well in the phonemic listening discrimination task.…”

“…This discrepancy could be explained by differing participants in the two studies- Posedel et al (2011) only accounted for the length of musical training, whereas Sadakata and Sekiyama (2011) All the participants performed equally well in the phonemic listening discrimination task.…”

“…The findings can potentially explain how identification of L2 categories occurs in Sadakata and Sekiyama's (2011) study. Although identification (application of categorical information to auditory stimulus) is a perceptually and cognitively challenging task, and the learning of L2 sound categories was very short, musicians might have been faster than non-musicians to acquire foreign categories as an acoustic regularity.…”

“…It follows that when broad and complex issues like music or language are being investigated, the terminology and validity of measures that studies use are of critical importance. Herrera et al (2011), Sadakata and Sekiyama (2011), and tested for pre-existing differences between the groups, such as general cognitive abilities and relevant confounding factors. However, Posedel et al (2011) treated participants as a homogenous sample and did not account for intelligence and L2 vocabulary knowledge, as Herrera et al's (2011) study did.…”