Two Randomized Trials Provide No Consistent Evidence for Nonmusical Cognitive Benefits of Brief Preschool Music Enrichment

Abstract

Young children regularly engage in musical activities, but the effects of early music education on children's cognitive development are unknown. While some studies have found associations between musical training in childhood and later nonmusical cognitive outcomes, few randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have been employed to assess causal effects of music lessons on child cognition and no clear pattern of results has emerged. We conducted two RCTs with preschool children investigating the cognitive effects of a brief series of music classes, as compared to a similar but non-musical form of arts instruction (visual arts classes, Experiment 1) or to a no-treatment control (Experiment 2). Consistent with typical preschool arts enrichment programs, parents attended classes with their children, participating in a variety of developmentally appropriate arts activities. After six weeks of class, we assessed children's skills in four distinct cognitive areas in which older arts-trained students have been reported to excel: spatial-navigational reasoning, visual form analysis, numerical discrimination, and receptive vocabulary. We initially found that children from the music class showed greater spatial-navigational ability than did children from the visual arts class, while children from the visual arts class showed greater visual form analysis ability than children from the music class (Experiment 1). However, a partial replication attempt comparing music training to a no-treatment control failed to confirm these findings (Experiment 2), and the combined results of the two experiments were negative: overall, children provided with music classes performed no better than those with visual arts or no classes on any assessment. Our findings underscore the need for replication in RCTs, and suggest caution in interpreting the positive findings from past studies of cognitive effects of music instruction.

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

“…This concern highlights, however, the need for experimental studies of the relationship between musical ability and specific domains of executive functioning. There is a small body of longitudinal studies of this sort (e.g., Moreno et al, 2011;Roden et al, 2014), but so far these approaches have not investigated multiple domains of EF and have yielded somewhat mixed results (e.g., Mehr, Schachner, Katz, & Spelke, 2013;Rickard, Bambrick, & Gill, 2012;see Okada & Slevc, in press, for a review), and so more work is clearly needed. In particular, the present findings suggest the utility of investigating memory updating in longitudinal designs.…”

Modelling Melodic Discrimination Tests: Descriptive and Explanatory Approaches

“…It is important to take this into account when interpreting scores on melodic discrimination tests, instead of simply equating test scores with concepts such as musical aptitude (e.g. Hu et al, 2013;Mehr et al, 2013Mehr et al, , 2016 or melodic memory (e.g. Müllensiefen et al, 2014;Zenatti, 1975).…”

“…The AMMA constitute the most widely used melodic discrimination test in academic research, and feature in many recent studies as a measure of musical aptitude (e.g. Hu et al, 2013;Kühnis, Elmer, Meyer, & Jäncke, 2012, 2013Mehr, Schachner, Katz, & Spelke, 2013;Mehr, Song, & Spelke, 2016). The AMMA comprise 30 items, none of which include transpositions.…”

Searching for evidence: continuing issues in dance education research

“…One may remember that brief time when we thought that all we needed in dance education was to find something comparable to the 'Mozart effect,' initially hailed by music educators as the proof of the value of music education for young children's brain development. But good scientific research must be replicable, and further studies were not able to replicate the very modest effects shown in the initial research (Carroll 2006;Mehr et al 2013). The myth of the Mozart effect, however, is perpetuated by many who have a profit to make from Mozart.…”