Article

While previous research has suggested that music training is associated with
improvements in various cognitive and linguistic skills, the mechanisms mediating
or underlying these associations are mostly unknown. Here, we addressed the
hypothesis that previous music training is related to improved working memory.
Using event-related potentials (ERPs) and a standardized test of working memory,
we investigated both neural and behavioral aspects of working memory in
college-aged, non-professional musicians and non-musicians. Behaviorally,
musicians outperformed non-musicians on standardized subtests of visual,
phonological, and executive memory. ERPs were recorded in standard auditory and
visual oddball paradigms (participants responded to infrequent deviant stimuli
embedded in lists of standard stimuli). Electrophysiologically, musicians
demonstrated faster updating of working memory (shorter latency P300s) in both
the auditory and visual domains and musicians allocated more neural resources to
auditory stimuli (larger amplitude P300), showing increased sensitivity to the
auditory standard/deviant difference and less effortful updating of auditory
working memory. These findings demonstrate that long-term music training is
related to improvements in working memory, in both the auditory and visual
domains and in terms of both behavioral and ERP measures.
CI - Copyright (c) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS