Music-reading expertise associates with configural face processing but not featural face processing

Abstract

Music-reading expertise has been proposed to be associated with the ability of face processing. However, the underlying mechanism and the neural correlates of this transfer effect remain unclear. The study further investigated the relationship between music reading experience and configural face processing, as well as featural face processing. In Experiment 1, 32 musical experts and 32 musical novices were recruited and completed the same-different task. In Experiment 2, another 23 musical experts and 23 musical novices were instructed to perform the same-different task during ERP recording. Compared with musical novices, musical experts showed better performance for configural face processing relative to featural face processing. Moreover, the better configural face processing performance was associated with the earlier onset training age and the longer length of music-reading training. Larger N170 and P300 amplitudes were elicited by featural than configural faces, whereas larger P2 amplitudes were elicited by configural than featural faces. Moreover, the P2 differences (configural versus featural face processing) were larger in the music expert group than in the music novice group. A larger P2 amplitude was associated with a longer length of music-reading training when processing configural faces. In summary, our behavioral and ERP data suggest that music-reading expertise was associated with configural face but not featural face processing, and provide evidence to support the proposal that the similarities in the perceptual processes play a key role in the transfer effect.