Tuning the mind: Exploring the connections between musical ability and executive functions

Slevc, L. Robert; Davey, Nicholas; Buschkuehl, Martin; Jaeggi, Susanne M.

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2016.03.017

Cited by 106 publications

(137 citation statements)

References 99 publications

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“…In one study, cultural or extracurricular activities, such as musical education and being bilingual, were associated to cognition outcomes 20, 21.We did not find support for this explanatory pathway. Sleep duration and physical activity have long been associated with both television viewing and mental health outcomes 4, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 66%

Television viewing duration during childhood and long- association with adolescent neuropsychological outcomes

O’Connor

Casas

Basagaña

et al. 2016

Preventive Medicine Reports

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This study is aiming to evaluate the association between television viewing during childhood and long-term adolescent neuropsychological outcomes and the potential explanatory pathways. This is a longitudinal study based on 278 children participating in the INMA birth cohort (1998) in Menorca Island, Spain. The exposure is parent-reported duration of child television viewing (hours per week) at 6 and 9 years of age. Neuropsychological outcomes were assessed at 14 years of age using the N-back test. Behavioral outcomes at 14 years of age were assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and school performance was assessed by the global school score. Regression models were developed to quantify the associations between duration of television viewing and neuropsychological outcomes adjusted for child and parents' characteristics. The average of weekly TV viewing from 6 to 9 years was 9.2 h (SD: 4.1). Only N-back test outcomes exhibited statistically significant differences in crude models. Children viewing > 14 h per week tended to show larger latencies in working memory reaction time (HRT in ms), beta (CI) = 53 (0–107). After adjusting for potential social confounders, the association weakened and became non-significant but adverse trends were slightly preserved. Early life TV viewing was not associated with adolescent neuropsychological outcomes after adjustment for potential confounders. Further research including larger and exhaustive population-based cohort studies is required in order to verify our conclusions.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 66%

Television viewing duration during childhood and long- association with adolescent neuropsychological outcomes

O’Connor

Casas

Basagaña

et al. 2016

Preventive Medicine Reports

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“…In a study with adult musicians, researchers assessed performance on musical discrimination tasks and inhibitory control but found no relationship between them (Slevc, Davey, Buschkuehl, & Jaeggi, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Got Rhythm? Better Inhibitory Control Is Linked with More Consistent Drumming and Enhanced Neural Tracking of the Musical Beat in Adult Percussionists and Nonpercussionists

Slater¹,

Ashley²,

Tierney³

et al. 2018

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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Abstract■ Musical rhythm engages motor and reward circuitry that is important for cognitive control, and there is evidence for enhanced inhibitory control in musicians. We recently revealed an inhibitory control advantage in percussionists compared with vocalists, highlighting the potential importance of rhythmic expertise in mediating this advantage. Previous research has shown that better inhibitory control is associated with less variable performance in simple sensorimotor synchronization tasks; however, this relationship has not been examined through the lens of rhythmic expertise. We hypothesize that the development of rhythm skills strengthens inhibitory control in two ways: by fine-tuning motor networks through the precise coordination of movements "in time" and by activating rewardbased mechanisms, such as predictive processing and conflict monitoring, which are involved in tracking temporal structure in music. Here, we assess adult percussionists and nonpercussionists on inhibitory control, selective attention, basic drumming skills (self-paced, paced, and continuation drumming), and cortical evoked responses to an auditory stimulus presented on versus off the beat of music. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that better inhibitory control is correlated with more consistent drumming and enhanced neural tracking of the musical beat. Drumming variability and the neural index of beat alignment each contribute unique predictive power to a regression model, explaining 57% of variance in inhibitory control. These outcomes present the first evidence that enhanced inhibitory control in musicians may be mediated by rhythmic expertise and provide a foundation for future research investigating the potential for rhythm-based training to strengthen cognitive function. ■

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“…Although there is little evidence that shortterm musical exposure can directly influence other cognitive abilities (i.e., there is little support for the so-called BMozart effect^; Pietschnig, Voracek, & Formann, 2010), a growing body of work has focused instead on the possibility that regular long-term engagement in music (e.g., learning to play an instrument) influences non-musical abilities (for reviews, see Benz, Sellaro, Hommel, & Colzato, 2015;Schellenberg & Weiss, 2013). These posited relationships with musical experience span a wide range of domains, ranging from social cognition (e.g., Good, Choma, & Russo, 2017;Kirschner & Tomasello, 2010) to cognitive abilities such as intelligence and EFs (e.g., Moreno & Bidelman, 2014;Schellenberg, 2004;Slevc, Davey, Buschkuehl, & Jaeggi, 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As suggested above, one non-musical cognitive process that has often been linked to musical experience is EFs. These top-down processes adaptively regulate behavior and cognition and are linked to many types of complex behavior, including music processing (e.g., Hannon & Trainor, 2007;Slevc et al, 2016;Slevc & Okada, 2015). Most models of EFs postulate three related but separable components: inhibition (or inhibitory control), shifting (or cognitive flexibility or switching), and updating (or working memory [WM] updating) (Diamond, 2013;Lehto, Juujärvi, Kooistra, & Pulkkinen, 2003;Logue & Gould, 2014;Miyake & Friedman, 2012;Miyake et al, 2000).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in musical training and executive functions: A latent variable approach

Okada

Slevc

2018

Mem Cogn

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Learning and performing music draw on a host of cognitive abilities, and previous research has postulated that musicians might have advantages in related cognitive processes. One such aspect of cognition that may be related to musical training is executive functions (EFs), a set of top-down processes that regulate behavior and cognition according to task demands. Previous studies investigating the link between musical training and EFs have yielded mixed results and are difficult to compare. In part, this is because most studies have looked at only one specific cognitive process, and even studies looking at the same process have used different experimental tasks. Furthermore, most correlational studies have used different "musician" and "non-musician" categorizations for their comparisons, so generalizing the findings is difficult. The present study provides a more comprehensive assessment of how individual differences in musical training relate to latent measures of three separable aspects of EFs. We administered a well-validated EF battery containing multiple tasks tapping the EF components of inhibition, shifting, and working memory updating (Friedman et al. in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137, 201-225, 2008), as well as a comprehensive, continuous measure of musical training and sophistication (Müllensiefen et al., in PLoS ONE, 9, e89642, 2014). Musical training correlated with some individual EF tasks involving inhibition and working memory updating, but not with individual tasks involving shifting. However, musical training only predicted the latent variable of working memory updating, but not the latent variables of inhibition or shifting after controlling for IQ, socioeconomic status, and handedness. Although these data are correlational, they nonetheless suggest that musical experience places particularly strong demands specifically on working memory updating processes.

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Tuning the mind: Exploring the connections between musical ability and executive functions

Cited by 106 publications

References 99 publications

Television viewing duration during childhood and long- association with adolescent neuropsychological outcomes

Television viewing duration during childhood and long- association with adolescent neuropsychological outcomes

Got Rhythm? Better Inhibitory Control Is Linked with More Consistent Drumming and Enhanced Neural Tracking of the Musical Beat in Adult Percussionists and Nonpercussionists

Individual differences in musical training and executive functions: A latent variable approach

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