The Acoustic Dimension of Reading: Does Musical Aptitude Affect Silent Reading Fluency?

Foncubierta, José Manuel; Machancoses, Francisco Herrero; Buyse, Kris; Mora, María Carmen Fonseca

doi:10.3389/fnins.2020.00399

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 61 publications

(86 reference statements)

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“…Since little previous research on the role of the musical aptitude on FL silent reading fluency has been conducted, the outcomes of this study should be treated with caution. However, it confirms the effect of musical aptitude on silent reading fluency that was already found between two romance languages, Italian and Spanish (Foncubierta et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…Although studies directly investigating the link between musical skills and foreign language reading skills in adults are scarce, a general picture emerges, that musical aptitude usually tested in children's L1 reading skills (Degé et al, 2015;Gordon et al, 2015;Strait et al, 2011) also impacts on children's (Gómez-Dominguez et al, 2019) and on adults' foreign reading fluency skills (Foncubierta et al, 2020) even when the foreign language does not belong to the same Indo European stock, as it is the case of this study. Data obtained from the musical aptitude test corroborate and cross-validate learners' self-reported musical training data.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

“…The connection between adult learners' musical aptitude and their reading abilities is also partly based on the notion that musical aptitude has been considered as one factor of individual differences in foreign language learning that clearly affects adults' pronunciation, which is one basic sublevel of language learning (Christiner & Reiterer, 2015;Slevc & Miyake, 2006). Moreover, Foncubierta et al (2020) report on the effect of musical aptitude on fluent silent reading. In their model where, Italian freshmen studying Spanish as a foreign language were assessed, musical aptitude reveals to be even stronger than phonological awareness or auditory working memory when describing learners' silent reading fluency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Musical aptitude, working memory, general intelligence and plurilingualism: When adults learn to read fluently in a foreign language

et al. 2021

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Studies over the past two decades have provided relevant data on the relationship between music and reading abilities although they fundamentally refer to aspects of the first language reading process of young children. The foreign language reading acquisition process of adult learners has, in this sense, been less explored. Research in this area refers to working memory as a "common cognitive marker" for musical aptitude and reading ability, but little is known about the relationship between musical aptitude and silent reading fluency of adult foreign language learners, the hallmark of skilled readers. Specifically, this study seeks to determine whether musical aptitude as well as cognitive factors such as working memory, general intelligence and plurilingualism could contribute to the understanding of adults' silent reading abilities in a foreign language. For this purpose,

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Musical aptitude, working memory, general intelligence and plurilingualism: When adults learn to read fluently in a foreign language

et al. 2021

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“…Studies by Delogu et al (2006Delogu et al ( , 2008, on the other hand, suggested that melodic abilities and overall musical training led to enhanced discrimination of lexical tones. Recent studies also found that overall musicality was driven mostly by melody discrimination ability and predicted second language reading fluency skills in learners of Spanish as a foreign language (Foncubierta et al, 2020).…”

Section: Individual Differences On the Subcortical Levelmentioning

confidence: 97%

Brain, musicality, and language aptitude: A complex interplay

Turker

Reiterer

2021

Ann Rev Appl Linguist

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Music and language are highly intertwined auditory phenomena that largely overlap on behavioral and neural levels. While the link between the two has been widely explored on a general level, comparably few studies have addressed the relationship between musical skills and language aptitude, defined as an individual's (partly innate) capacity for learning foreign languages. Behaviorally, past research has provided evidence that individuals’ musicality levels (expressed by singing, instrument playing, and/or perceptive musical abilities) are significantly associated with their foreign language learning, particularly the acquisition of phonetic and phonological skills (e.g., pronunciation, speech imitation). On the neural level, both skills recruit a wide array of overlapping brain areas, which are also involved in cognition and memory. The neurobiology of language aptitude is an area ripe for investigation, since there has been only limited research establishing neurofunctional and neuroanatomical markers characteristic of speech imitation and overall language aptitude (e.g., in the left/right auditory cortex and left inferior parietal areas of the brain). Thus, as noted above, in this short review for ARAL, the aim is to describe the most recent neuroscientific findings on the neurobiology of language aptitude, to discuss the complex interplay between language aptitude and musicality from neural and behavioral perspectives, and to briefly outline what the promise of future research in this area holds.

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“…For example, musical aptitude (including specific abilities such as singing and harmonic discrimination) is associated with better phonemic perception and production abilities in a foreign language (see Milovanov & Tervaniemi, 2011, for review;Christiner & Reiterer, 2018), and phonological abilities in an L2 (Slevc & Miyake, 2006). Further musical aptitude predicts foreign language silent reading fluency better than other reading-related skills or auditory working memory (Foncubierta et al, 2020). Musicality was also associated with more accurate grammatical judgments of complex syntax in an artificial grammar learning task (Brod & Opitz, 2012).…”

Section: Musical Aptitude and Phonemic Skills In An L2 Or Foreign Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

The Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment (MAPLE) Framework for Understanding Musicality-Language Links Across the Lifespan

Nayak¹,

Coleman²,

Ladányi³

et al. 2021

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Using individual differences approaches, a growing body of literature finds positive associations between musicality and language-related abilities, complementing prior findings of links between musical training and language skills. Despite these associations, musicality has been often overlooked in mainstream models of individual differences in language acquisition and development. To better understand the biological basis of these individual differences, we propose the Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment (MAPLE) framework. This novel integrative framework posits that musical and language-related abilities likely share some common genetic architecture (i.e., genetic pleiotropy) in addition to some degree of overlapping neural endophenotypes, and genetic influences on musically and linguistically enriched environments. We review and discuss findings from over seventy studies in the literature demonstrating that individual differences in musical aptitude (i.e., rhythm and tonality skills) are robustly correlated with a wide range of speech-language skills that are foundational for effective communication, including speech perception, grammatical abilities, reading-related skills, and second/foreign language learning. From this body of work we conclude that musical abilities are intertwined with speech, language, and reading development over the lifespan. Drawing upon recent advances in genomic methodologies for unraveling pleiotropy, we outline testable predictions for future research on language development and how its underlying neurobiological substrates may be supported by genetic pleiotropy with musicality.

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The Acoustic Dimension of Reading: Does Musical Aptitude Affect Silent Reading Fluency?

Cited by 16 publications

References 61 publications

Musical aptitude, working memory, general intelligence and plurilingualism: When adults learn to read fluently in a foreign language

Musical aptitude, working memory, general intelligence and plurilingualism: When adults learn to read fluently in a foreign language

Brain, musicality, and language aptitude: A complex interplay

The Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment (MAPLE) Framework for Understanding Musicality-Language Links Across the Lifespan

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