Summary: A large-scale, multi-site study challenges the widely held belief that formal musical training improves the brain’s earliest stages of sound processing. Using a sample size more than four times larger than earlier reports, researchers found no reliable difference between musicians and non-musicians in subcortical auditory responses measured by the Frequency Following Response (FFR), nor in the ability to recognize speech in noisy backgrounds.
These results indicate that while musicians often show superior musical perception, that advantage does not appear to originate in the brain’s earliest auditory processing stages. The study underscores the need for large, preregistered, and rigorously controlled experiments to evaluate widely accepted hypotheses in auditory neuroscience.
Key Facts
- No Early Processing Advantage: Years of formal musical training were not associated with enhanced early-stage neural encoding of sound.
- Age Effect Observed: Early neural encoding of speech declines with age regardless of musical background.
- Future Directions: Intervention studies with active control groups are recommended to determine whether musical training affects later, cortical stages of auditory processing.
Source: University of Minnesota and University of Michigan
Overview of the study
Researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota conducted a large-scale, multi-site, preregistered replication study (n > 260) to test previously reported links between musical training and enhanced early auditory neural responses. Prior smaller studies suggested that musicians show a more faithful neural representation of sound as measured by the Frequency Following Response (FFR), a scalp-recorded brain response that synchronizes to the frequency of an auditory stimulus. The FFR has been interpreted as reflecting subcortical or early auditory pathway encoding fidelity.
In this replication effort, the team attempted to reproduce several key findings from earlier papers. Across multiple sites and a much larger sample, they did not replicate the previously reported relationships. Musicians did not show superior FFR fidelity compared with non-musicians, nor did they demonstrate better speech recognition in background noise. Likewise, neither the number of years of musical training nor the age of onset of training predicted stronger neural tracking of a speech sound with a dynamic pitch trajectory.
The study did replicate a robust effect of age: early neural processing of speech declines as people get older. Importantly, that decline was independent of musical experience.
Kelly L. Whiteford, assistant professor of otolaryngology at the University of Michigan Medical School and a former member of the University of Minnesota team, noted that this study used sample sizes more than four times larger than the original investigations. “We found no relationship between musical training and sound processing at very early stages of the auditory system, thought to reflect sound representation deep in the brain,” Whiteford said.
What the FFR measures
The Frequency Following Response is recorded by presenting sounds through earphones while monitoring brain electrical activity using small electrodes on the scalp. The brain’s electrical signal can synchronize with the frequency content of the sound stimulus, and the fidelity of that synchronization is taken as an index of how faithfully the auditory system represents the stimulus.
Two earlier studies had reported that musicians show stronger or more faithful FFRs and that they are better able to maintain that fidelity in the presence of background noise. The current, larger study found no evidence supporting those conclusions. The authors point out that prior research often used smaller samples and inconsistent definitions of who qualified as a “musician” versus a “non-musician,” and that there is substantial variability of abilities within those groups.
Implications and next steps
Although this study casts doubt on the notion that musical training enhances pre-cortical (subcortical) auditory processing, it does not contradict evidence that musical training can influence later, cortical stages of auditory processing or cognitive functions related to music perception. Musicians consistently demonstrate superior music perception, but this study shows that those perceptual advantages are not reflected in the FFR measures collected here.
An open question remains: are perceptual differences in musicians caused by training, or do people with naturally stronger auditory processing tend to pursue music? The authors recommend future randomized intervention studies with active control groups to address causality and to explore effects at cortical levels of processing.
Andrew J. Oxenham, Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the University of Minnesota Department of Psychology and senior author on the paper, emphasized the importance of rigorous, large-scale replication. “These results highlight the need to carry out rigorous large-scale studies to test even the most attractive theories,” he said. Oxenham and colleagues also stressed that these findings do not diminish the cultural, emotional, and social value of music.
Additional authors: Lucas S. Baltzell, Matt Chiu, John K. Cooper, Stefanie Faucher, Pui Yii Goh, Anna Hagedorn, Vanessa C. Irsik, Audra Irvine, Sung-Joo Lim, Juraj Mesik, Bruno Mesquita, Breanna Oakes, Neha Rajappa, Elin Roverud, Amy E. Schrlau, Stephen C. Van Hedger, Hari M. Bharadwaj, Ingrid S. Johnsrude, Gerald Kidd Jr., Anne E. Luebke, Ross K. Maddox, Elizabeth W. Marvin, Tyler K. Perrachione, Barbara G. Shinn-Cunningham
Funding and disclosures: Supported by NSF-BCS grant 1840818 and NIH R01 DC005216. Additional support provided by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund Award “BrainsCAN” to Western University for some investigators and trainees.
About this auditory neuroscience research news
Author: Savannah Erdman
Source: University of Minnesota
Contact: Savannah Erdman, University of Minnesota
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original research (open access): “Large-scale multi-site study shows no association between musical training and early auditory neural sound encoding” by Kelly L. Whiteford et al., Nature Communications. The study is a preregistered, multi-site replication effort that did not find evidence linking early auditory neural responses to musical training or musical ability.
Abstract
Large-scale multi-site study shows no association between musical training and early auditory neural sound encoding
Musical training has been reported to be associated with enhanced neural processing of sounds, as measured via the frequency following response (FFR), implying potential subcortical neural plasticity. We conducted a large-scale, multi-site, preregistered study (n > 260) to replicate and extend the foundational findings. We failed to replicate the major previously published findings selected for replication. Musical training was not associated with enhanced neural encoding strength of a speech stimulus (/da/) in babble, whether assessed by spectral or temporal FFR measures. Similarly, the strength of neural tracking of a speech sound with a dynamic pitch trajectory was not related to either years of musical training or age of onset. Our findings provide no evidence for associations between early auditory neural responses and either musical training or musical ability.