Abstract
Predictions from a structured cortical model led us to test the hypothesis
that music training enhances young children's spatial-temporal reasoning.
Seventy-eight preschool children participated in this study. Thirty-four
children received private piano keyboard lessons, 20 children received
private computer lessons, and 24 children provided other controls.
Four standard, age-calibrated, spatial reasoning tests were given
before and after training; one test assessed spatial-temporal reasoning
and three tests assessed spatial recognition. Significant improvement
on the spatial-temporal test was found for the keyboard group only.
No group improved significantly on the spatial recognition tests.
The magnitude of the spatial-temporal improvement from keyboard training
was greater than one standard deviation of the standardized test
and lasted at least one day, a duration traditionally classified
as long term. This represents an increase in time by a factor of
over 100 compared to a previous study in which listening to a Mozart
piano sonata primed spatial-temporal reasoning in college students.
This suggests that music training produces long-term modifications
in underlying neural circuitry in regions not primarily concerned
with music and might be investigated using EEG. We propose that an
improvement of the magnitude reported may enhance the learning of
standard curricula, such as mathematics and science, that draw heavily
upon spatial-temporal reasoning.
- attention,child,computers,education,female,humans,male,music,music:
- perception,thinking,wechsler
- performance,space
- psychology,preschool,psychomotor
- reasoning
- scales,acquisition,music,musicality,spatial
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