Music and Cognitive Flexibility: a case of limited transfer?

Kurzfassung/Abstract

Introduction
When asked to switch between several tasks people usually exhibit switch costs in performance in that they get slower and performance more error-prone. These switch costs are taken as index of cognitive flexibility and smaller switch costs reflect better flexibility. Experts in one domain (i.e., music) are often suspected to transfer their skills to non-expertise domains. This holds true also for musicians which are often required to change tempi or clefs while performing. We asked if skills that are acquired by music training can also improve performance in tasks in non-musical domains. Therefore, this paper deals with the question of whether music training is associated with improved cognitive flexibility. Existing evidence concerning the potential influences of music training on cognitive flexibility in adults shows mixed results for transfer to non-musical tasks (e.g., Gade & Schlemmer, 2021).

Aims
In order to further investigate the transfer of cognitive flexibility associated with music training, we designed an experiment in which participants solved both a music-related task (reading of musical notes) and a non-musical task (comparing numbers). We hypothesized that music training should influence the performance in the music-related switching task, but not in the non-musical switching task.

Method
The music-related task was modeled after Slama et al. (2017). Participants were presented with a visual cue (either a violin or a bass clef) on the computer screen for 250 ms. After a cue-target interval, the target stimulus and two accompanying stimuli were presented. The task of the participants was to indicate the position of the matching stimulus by pressing a key on the computer keyboard. For example, when the cue was a violin clef and the target was the letter “A”, participants had to decide which of the two tones is an A in violin clef. In the non-musical task, participants had to indicate which number was smaller or larger than the presented one, based on the cue. All participants filled in the Gold MSI to assess musical training (Müllensiefen et al., 2014). Participants were sampled with the demand that they have a minimum of five years of music training. Data was collected from 62 participants. Reaction time data were submitted to a linear mixed effects model with transition (task switch vs. repetition) and task (musical vs. non-musical) as fixed factors and Gold-MSI score as a continuous variable.

Results
Mean score in the Gold-MSI training scale was 36.04 (SD=7.04). The model revealed switch costs which were not affected by task type or by the Gold-MSI score.

Discussion
Our results revealed that in our musically educated sample, switch costs were similar in a music-related and in a non-musical task. These results suggest a general improvement in cognitive flexibility which is not only visible in expertise-related tasks. Caveats should be investigated, such as the comparability of the tasks alongside the level of music training, which was remarkably high in our sample. Currently a non-musical sample is collected in the number comparison task, which will allow a comparison between participants with and without music training.


References
Gade, M., & Schlemmer, K. (2021). Music Modulates Cognitive Flexibility? An Investigation of the Benefits of Musical Training on Markers of Cognitive Flexibility. Brain Sciences, 11(4), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11040451
Müllensiefen, D., Gingras, B., Musil, J., & Stewart, L. (2014). The musicality of non-musicians: An index for assessing musical sophistication in the general population. PLOS ONE, 9, e89642. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0089642
Slama, H., Rebillon, E., & Kolinsky, R. (2017). Expertise and cognitive flexibility: A musician’s tale. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 1, 119–127. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-017-0011-5