The transfer effect of musical ability to intelligence and reading

Abstract

Disciplinary background A. In the discipline of music education, how musical training can benefit other non-musical cognitive domains has been a perennial theme among music educators, music pedagogist, and education policymakers. Despite its importance, the mechanism of the musical transfer effect is still shrouded in mystery. According to Swaminathan & Schellenberg (2019), not only are the results of the current literature on the transfer effect of musical ability contradicting, but the definition of musical training is also loosely defined. Disciplinary background B. In the discipline of linguistics, it has been hypothesized that tonal language speakers tend to have a finer perception of pitch variation so that it can be transferred to the domain of music, which also relies heavily on pitch variation. According to this hypothesis, tonal language speakers should have a higher prevalence of perfect pitch possessors and a lower prevalence of amusic patients. Except for this hypothesis, the direction of language-to-music transfer is still insufficiently investigated when compared to the music-to-language transfer. Moreover, there is virtually no literature on the language-to-music transfer when a longitudinal approach is adopted. Abstract In the discipline of linguistics, it has been hypothesized that tonal language speakers tend to have a finer perception of pitch variation so that it can be transferred to the domain of music, which also relies heavily on pitch variation. According to this hypothesis, tonal language speakers should have a higher prevalence of perfect pitch possessors and a lower prevalence of amusic patients. Except for this hypothesis, the direction of language-to-music transfer is still insufficiently investigated when compared to the music-to-language transfer. Moreover, there is virtually no literature on the language-to-music transfer when a longitudinal approach is adopted. Explaining the mechanism of cross-domain transfer between musical ability and other cognitive domains is crucial for us to understand both the pedagogical and therapeutic significance of music in the early development of children. Despite its importance, current literature still lacks convincing evidence to address how and under what conditions musical abilities can benefit other cognitive domains. In this study, we studied the reciprocal associations