Re: [AUDITORY] Papers on lack of effect of musical training

There are myriad reasons to ask why music training has benefits beyond music! (Here is one)

I’m interested in improving (re)habilitation outcomes for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, focussing on two areas that are particularly salient: SIN perception and psychosocial wellbeing. As there’s evidence primarily from typical-hearing musician vs non-musician studies suggesting benefits to both, it is sensible enough to explore music as part of a compliment to standard intervention services.

From a more practical perspective, exploring the broad benefits of music for the deaf community also helps reduce the stigma around their participation. I have had a disheartening number of parents share their experiences with the barriers their DHH child face when it comes to joining the school choir or orchestra for example. Thankfully, while broader society still has to contend with its ableism, parental attitudes are very positive toward music:

Looi, V., Torppa, R., Prvan, T., & Vickers, D. A. D. (2019). The Role Of Music In Families Of Children With Hearing Loss and Normal Hearing In Australia, Finland and the UK. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 13.

My most recent work also suggests music has specific benefits for deaf kids:

Lo, C. Y., Looi, V., Thompson, W. F., & McMahon, C. M. (2020). Music Training for Children With Sensorineural Hearing Loss Improves Speech-in-Noise Perception. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_JSLHR-19-00391

I’ll sign off with this archaic nugget from 1848. “What possible benefit can result from teaching music to the deaf or from exercising them in musical performances when learned?” – I find it remarkable that almost two centuries later, we’re still asking the same questions!

Turner, W. W. (1848). Music among the deaf and dumb. American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb, 2(1), 1–6.

Ian (and indeed everybody) – I’d love to hear your definition of music. I’ve never found one to be sufficient.

Cheers,

Chi

Chi Yhun Lo, PhD

Adjunct Fellow, Macquarie University | Parents of Deaf Children

Department of Linguistics (Audiology)

G330, Speech and Hearing Clinic

Australian Hearing Hub

16 University Avenue

Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia

T: +61 (2) 9850 8106 | M: + 61 405 379 177 | E: chi.lo@xxxxxxxxx

Teaching Portfolio: bit.ly/chiyhunlo

CRICOS Provider 00002J. ABN: 90 952 801 237.

This message is intended for the addressee named and may
contain confidential information. If you are not the intended
recipient, please delete the message and notify the sender.
Views expressed in this message are those of the individual
sender and are not necessarily the views of Macquarie
University and its controlled entities.

From: AUDITORY - Research in Auditory Perception <AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Douglas Scott
Sent: Sunday, 16 August 2020 3:11 AM
To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [AUDITORY] Papers on lack of effect of musical training

I think it is perfectly legitimate to ask if there are ancillary effects. It's not just about countering the phillistinic impulse or economic value. It's also about the fact that brain tissue is some of the most energy intensive tissue in the body and there is direct trade-off between gut tissue and brain tissue in evolutionary terms.

So if you are trying to understand the human condition in general, it would be counterproductive to simply ignore the fact that a disproportionate amount of time, effort and energy is being expended on an activity that seemingly has no function at all, whether that be in the form of training or cultural practice generally. Conversely, if one is trying to understand the nature of music on its own terms, it makes it very difficult if one deliberately restricted the search to intrinsic qualities and matters of functionally empty personal or social edification.

Matters of classification are not restricted to artistic matters either. As Stephen Jay Gould famously noted: "There is no such thing as a fish". This is a problem inherent to classification schemes and language in general, and doesn't really tell us anything specific about music in particular. While it certainly worth being aware of the fact that truth is undefinable in this way when doing any sort of framing, it shouldn't act as a preventative to framing, but as a cautionary to avoid substituting the framing for the undefinable dynamical object under investigation in the first place.

Regards

Douglas Scott

On Sat, 15 Aug 2020 at 06:15, Ian Cross <ic108@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

To play devil's advocate here, I'm not sure that the question of whether or not musical training has effects beyond music in is worth asking, other than in the political attempt to counter the philistinism of a utilitarian capitalism that discounts any investment in activities that are not obviously of immediate economic value. One of the persistent problems with research into phenomena such as "effects of musical training" or "genetics of musicality" is a failure to recognise the culture-specificity of the concepts "musical training" and "musicality". Even in what might be construed as the fairly homogeneous musical culture of contemporary Europe, different skills are accorded different degrees of importance in different national music-educational traditions. "Musicality" across Europe is something of a Frankenstein concept — and once one moves beyond Europe the diversity of what might count as "musicality" only increases. Hence one would expect to find quite different answers to the question that are highly dependent on cultural context — even if one could identify what one intends by the term "music" in the first place.

Best,

Ian Cross

On 15/08/2020 07:57, Colette McKAY wrote:

note that papers comparing musicians and non-musicians in cross-sectional studies cannot separate effects of music training and innate (genetic based) characteristics.

Similarly, in those studies, correlations of effects with amount of music training or engagement in training cannot separate effects of training and innate characteristics.

Longitudinal training studies with careful control of expectation bias and innate characteristics are the only valid way to see if the training itself is being transferred to other cognitive or sensory domains. Unfortunately most of those studies have low quality research designs and the chance of finding an effect of music training is positively correlated with poor design (inappropriate or no control, no randomisation, wrong statistics). e.g. Sala, G., & Gobet, F. (2020). Cognitive and academic benefits of music training with children: A multilevel meta-analysis. Mem Cognit. doi:10.3758/s13421-020-01060-2 found null effect of music training on cognitive outcomes when the correlation of effect size with quality of research design was partialled out of the analysis.

There is also a growing literature of genetic studies and twin studies that highlight the genetic differences between people with musical aptitude or not. This link is largely ignored in "music training" studies

best,

Colette McKay

Professor Colette McKay
Principal Scientist

Leader, Translational Hearing Research
Bionics Institute
384-388 Albert St
East Melbourne Vic 3002
Office: +61 3 9667 7500
Direct line: +61 3 9667 7541
Mobile: 0408698202
Fax: +61 3 9667 7518
http://www.bionicsinstitute.org/our-staff/Pages/Prof-Colette-McKay.aspx
Donate today to help us change lives

This email is private and confidential to the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient please do not copy it, circulate it or take any action in reliance on it. Kindly notify me that it has been misdirected and then delete it. Thank you.

From: Colette McKAY
Sent: 14 August 2020 15:01
To: Francesco Caprini; AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [AUDITORY] Papers on lack of effect of musical training

I suggest you have a look at the following meta-analysis re cognition.

Sala, G., & Gobet, F. (2020). Cognitive and academic benefits of music training with children: A multilevel meta-analysis. Mem Cognit. doi:10.3758/s13421-020-01060-2

And this paper

Schellenberg, E. G. (2015). Music training and speech perception: a gene-environment interaction. Ann N Y Acad Sci, 1337, 170-177. doi:10.1111/nyas.12627

..and many papers that make claims unsubstantiated by their stats or research design.

Best regards,

Colette

Professor Colette McKay

Leader, Translational Hearing Research

Principal Scientist

Bionics Institute

384-388 Albert St

East Melbourne Vic 3002

Office: +61 3 9667 7500

Direct line: +61 3 9667 7541

Mobile: 0408698202

Fax: +61 3 9667 7518

http://www.bionicsinstitute.org/our-staff/Pages/Prof-Colette-McKay.aspx

A world leader in medical bionics

Donate today to help us change lives

This email is private and confidential to the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient please do not copy it, circulate it or take any action in reliance on it. Kindly notify me that it has been misdirected and then delete it. Thank you.

From: AUDITORY - Research in Auditory Perception [mailto:AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Francesco Caprini
Sent: Friday, 14 August 2020 2:28 AM
To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AUDITORY] Papers on lack of effect of musical training

Dear everyone,

I'm currently conducting a literature review on the transfer of musical expertise onto other domains of cognition, as part of a paper where I compare musicians with sound engineers across a number of behavioural tasks, i.e. psychophysics, auditory scene analysis, sustained selective attention, and speech in noise perception.

I am specifically interested in papers that failed to detect an association between musicianship and any of these dimensions, which are surprisingly (or unsurprisingly?) very hard to find via canonical search engines.

Would anyone know of any recent papers that might fit into this category?

I’m only aware of the mixed literature on speech in noise perception (see refs below).

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Francesco

**References**

Ruggles, D. R., Freyman, R. L., & Oxenham, A. J. (2014). Influence of musical training on understanding voiced and whispered speech in noise. PLoS ONE, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0086980

Boebinger, D., Evans, S., Rosen, S., Lima, C. F., Manly, T., & Scott, S. K. (2015). Musicians and non-musicians are equally adept at perceiving masked speech. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 137(1), 378–387. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4904537

Fuller, C. D., Galvin, J. J., Maat, B., Free, R. H., & Başkent, D. (2014). The musician effect: Does it persist under degraded pitch conditions of cochlear implant simulations? Frontiers in Neuroscience, 8(8 JUN), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2014.00179

Skoe, E., Camera, S., & Tufts, J. (2019). Noise exposure may diminish the musician advantage for perceiving speech in noise. Ear and Hearing, 40(4), 782–793. https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000000665

Madsen, S. M. K., Whiteford, K. L., & Oxenham, A. J. (2017). Musicians do not benefit from differences in fundamental frequency when listening to speech in competing speech backgrounds. Scientific Reports, 7(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-12937-9

**********************************************

Francesco Caprini

PhD student in Auditory Neuroscience

Birkbeck, University of London

fcapri01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

**********************************************
-- 
Professor Ian Cross
Chair, Faculty Board of Music
Director, Centre for Music & Science
Faculty of Music
University of Cambridge
Cambridge CB3 9DP