Does music training enhance auditory and linguistic processing? A systematic review and meta-analysis of behavioral and brain evidence.

It is often claimed that music training improves auditory and linguistic skills. Results of individual studies are mixed, however, and most evidence is correlational, precluding inferences of causation. Here, we evaluated data from 62 longitudinal studies that examined whether music training programs affect behavioral and brain measures of auditory and linguistic processing (N = 3928). For the behavioral data, a multivariate meta-analysis revealed a small positive effect of music training on both auditory and linguistic measures, regardless of the type of assignment (random vs. non-random), training (instrumental vs. non-instrumental), and control group (active vs. passive). The trim-and-fill method provided suggestive evidence of publication bias, but meta-regression methods (PET-PEESE) did not. For the brain data, a narrative synthesis also documented benefits of music training, namely for measures of auditory processing and for measures of speech and prosody processing. Thus, the available literature provides evidence that music training produces small neurobehavioral enhancements in auditory and linguistic processing, although future studies are needed to confirm that such enhancements are not due to publication bias.

Associations between vocal emotion recognition and socio-emotional adjustment in children.

The human voice is a primary channel for emotional communication. It is often presumed that being able to recognize vocal emotions is important for everyday socio-emotional functioning, but evidence for this assumption remains scarce. Here, we examined relationships between vocal emotion recognition and socio-emotional adjustment in children. The sample included 141 6- to 8-year-old children, and the emotion tasks required them to categorize five emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, plus neutrality), as conveyed by two types of vocal emotional cues: speech prosody and non-verbal vocalizations such as laughter. Socio-emotional adjustment was evaluated by the children's teachers using a multidimensional questionnaire of self-regulation and social behaviour. Based on frequentist and Bayesian analyses, we found that, for speech prosody, higher emotion recognition related to better general socio-emotional adjustment. This association remained significant even when the children's cognitive ability, age, sex and parental education were held constant. Follow-up analyses indicated that higher emotional prosody recognition was more robustly related to the socio-emotional dimensions of prosocial behaviour and cognitive and behavioural self-regulation. For emotion recognition in non-verbal vocalizations, no associations with socio-emotional adjustment were found. A similar null result was obtained for an additional task focused on facial emotion recognition. Overall, these results support the close link between children's emotional prosody recognition skills and their everyday social behaviour.

Authentic and posed emotional vocalizations trigger distinct facial responses.

The ability to recognize the emotions of others is a crucial skill. In the visual modality, sensorimotor mechanisms provide an important route for emotion recognition. Perceiving facial expressions often evokes activity in facial muscles and in motor and somatosensory systems, and this activity relates to performance in emotion tasks. It remains unclear whether and how similar mechanisms extend to audition. Here we examined facial electromyographic and electrodermal responses to nonverbal vocalizations that varied in emotional authenticity. Participants (N = 100) passively listened to laughs and cries that could reflect an authentic or a posed emotion. Bayesian mixed models indicated that listening to laughter evoked stronger facial responses than listening to crying. These responses were sensitive to emotional authenticity. Authentic laughs evoked more activity than posed laughs in the zygomaticus and orbicularis, muscles typically associated with positive affect. We also found that activity in the orbicularis and corrugator related to subjective evaluations in a subsequent authenticity perception task. Stronger responses in the orbicularis predicted higher perceived laughter authenticity. Stronger responses in the corrugator, a muscle associated with negative affect, predicted lower perceived laughter authenticity. Moreover, authentic laughs elicited stronger skin conductance responses than posed laughs. This arousal effect did not predict task performance, however. For crying, physiological responses were not associated with authenticity judgments. Altogether, these findings indicate that emotional authenticity affects peripheral nervous system responses to vocalizations. They also point to a role of sensorimotor mechanisms in the evaluation of authenticity in the auditory modality.

High emotional contagion and empathy are associated with enhanced detection of emotional authenticity in laughter.

Nonverbal vocalisations such as laughter pervade social interactions, and the ability to accurately interpret them is an important skill. Previous research has probed the general mechanisms supporting vocal emotional processing, but the factors that determine individual differences in this ability remain poorly understood. Here, we ask whether the propensity to resonate with others' emotions-as measured by trait levels of emotional contagion and empathy-relates to the ability to perceive different types of laughter. We focus on emotional authenticity detection in spontaneous and voluntary laughs: spontaneous laughs reflect a less controlled and genuinely felt emotion, and voluntary laughs reflect a more deliberate communicative act (e.g., polite agreement). In total, 119 participants evaluated the authenticity and contagiousness of spontaneous and voluntary laughs and completed two self-report measures of resonance with others' emotions: the Emotional Contagion Scale and the Empathic Concern scale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. We found that higher scores on these measures predict enhanced ability to detect laughter authenticity. We further observed that perceived contagion responses during listening to laughter significantly relate to authenticity detection. These findings suggest that resonating with others' emotions provides a mechanism for processing complex aspects of vocal emotional information.

Orff-Based Music Training Enhances Children's Manual Dexterity and Bimanual Coordination.

How music training and expertise influence non-musical abilities is a widely researched topic. Most studies focus on the differences between adult professional musicians and non-musicians, or examine the effects of intensive instrumental training in childhood. However, the impact of music programs developed in regular school contexts for children from low-income communities is poorly explored. We conducted a longitudinal training study in such communities to examine if collective (Orff-based) music training enhances fine motor abilities, when compared to a homologous training program in sports (basketball), and to no specific training. The training programs in music and sports had the same duration, 24 weeks, and were homologous in structure. A pre-test, training, post-test and follow-up design was adopted. Children attending the 3rd grade (n = 74, 40 girls; mean age 8.31 years) were pseudorandomly divided into three groups, music, sports and control that were matched on demographic and intellectual characteristics. Fine motor abilities were assessed with the Purdue pegboard test (eye-hand coordination and motor speed, both subsumed under manual dexterity, and bimanual coordination) and with the Grooved pegboard (manipulative dexterity) test. All groups improved in manipulative dexterity that was not affected by type of training. On bimanual coordination and manual dexterity, however, a robust and stable advantage of music training emerged. At the end of training (post-test), children from the music group significantly outperformed children from the sports and control groups, an advantage that persisted at follow-up 4 months after training at the start of the following school year. Also, at follow-up none of the children from the music group were performing below the 20th percentile in the Purdue pegboard subtests and more than half were performing at the high end level (>80th percentile). Children from the sports group also improved significantly from pre- to post-test but their performance was not significantly different from that of the control group. These results show that an affordable, collective-based music practice impacts positively on fine-motor abilities, a finding that is relevant for a better understanding of the impact of music in childhood development, and that may have implications for education at the primary grade.