Active maintenance of musical and linguistic information as a function of musical experience.

Abstract

Recent research suggests that linguistic and musical information are processed by shared working memory resources in non-musicians. However, it is still unclear how musical information is actively maintained by those with extensive musical experience. Some evidence suggests that those with musical experience may utilize distinct processing systems for the active maintenance of linguistic and musical information. To explore this possibility, a cross-modal interference paradigm was used in which those with and without musical experience were presented with an initial stimulus (word or chord), followed by intervening stimuli (words, chords, or silence), and then a comparison stimulus (word or chord). The participants' task was to indicate whether the comparison stimulus was the same or different from the initial stimulus. Results revealed a pattern of data that would be expected if the active maintenance of linguistic and musical information was accomplished by distinct systems in those with musical experience and a unitary system in non-musicians.