Advanced Music Training and Executive Function: A Neurocognitive Study

The objective of this study was to assess the relationship between advanced music training and neurocognitive functioning, with specific focus on executive function, working memory, and tactile interhemispheric transfer. Twenty professional musicians and a comparison group of 19 individuals with no formal music training or performance experience completed a battery of measures of executive functioning, working memory, and interhemispheric transfer. The musician group had an average of 20.4 years (SD = 9.6) of formal music training and had started formal music training at a mean age of 5.8 years (SD = 2.5). Results revealed significantly better performance of the musicians group on the Word, Colour, and Interference portions of the Stroop Test and on a test of tactile interhemispheric transfer. These findings provide support for the idea that advanced music training has a positive relationship with some aspects of executive function and interhemispheric transfer, and may have implications for the potential use of music training for therapeutic purposes, as well as for educational programming and policies regarding early music education in the classroom.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor dc:publisher

Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Sabir, Shamma Miriam

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Alfano, Dennis

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Arbuthnott, Katherine D.
• MacLennan, Richard

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

https://doi.org/10.82465/3950

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uregina.scholaris.ca:10294/3645