EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MUSICAL APTITUDE AND AUDITORY PHONOLOGICAL PATTERN RECOGNITION IN SINGLE- AND MULTI-SPEAKER LANGUAGE CONTEXTS
Keywords:
musical aptitude, language aptitude, fine-grained auditory skills, musicalityAbstract
Research has demonstrated that musical aptitude is closely associated with a range of linguistic abilities, highlighting the interrelation between these two faculties. Musicians are often characterized by fine-grained auditory skills that emerge through both innate aptitude and systematic training. Consequently, an increasing body of research has shown that individuals with advanced musical skills tend to outperform those with lower musical proficiency across several cognitive domains, most notably in the acquisition of foreign languages. This advantage is particularly evident in early stages of language learning, when learners must rely primarily on acoustic parameters before fully establishing connections to semantic context.
We sought to determine whether fine-grained auditory abilities underlie the relationship between musical aptitude and language performance in initial learning contexts, particularly when learners are exposed to unfamiliar linguistic material. We examined whether musical aptitude is differentially related to language performance by contrasting a Single-Speaker task, which places high demands on fine-grained auditory discrimination, with a Multi-Speaker task, which introduces greater variability in auditory input and relies less on precise auditory acuity.
Musical aptitude measures were strongly interrelated and showed the expected gradient of association with speech tasks (stronger in Single-Speaker vs. weaker in Multi-Speaker conditions). The findings suggest that musical aptitude plays a pivotal role in contexts where refined auditory discrimination is required. The findings suggest that musical aptitude plays a pivotal role in contexts where refined auditory discrimination is required. By contrast, in settings involving multiple speakers and languages, its influence weakens substantially and appears to play a minor role.
Downloads
References
Asaridou, Salomi S., and James M. McQueen. 2013. “Speech and Music Shape the Listening Brain: Evidence for Shared Domain-General Mechanisms.” Frontiers in Psychology 4: 321. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00321.
Bentley, Arnold. 1966. Measures of Musical Abilities. Windsor, England: NFER-Nelson.
Besson, Mireille, Julie Chobert, and Céline Marie. 2011. “Transfer of Training Between Music and Speech: Common Processing, Attention, and Memory.” Frontiers in Psychology 2: 94. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00094.
Chobert, Julie, Clément François, Jean-Luc Velay, and Mireille Besson. 2014. “Twelve Months of Active Musical Training in 8- to 10-Year-Old Children Enhances the Preattentive Processing of Syllabic Duration and Voice Onset Time.” Cerebral Cortex 24 (4): 956–967. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhs377.
Christiner, Markus. 2020. Musicality and Second Language Acquisition: Singing and Phonetic Language Aptitude Phonetic Language Aptitude. Doctoral thesis, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Christiner, Markus, Valdis Bernhofs, and Christine Groß. 2022. “Individual Differences in Singing Behavior During Childhood Predict Language Performance During Adulthood.” Languages 7 (2): 72. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7020072.
Christiner, Markus, Valdis Bernhofs, Sabine Sommer-Lolei, and Christine Groß. 2023. “What Makes a Foreign Language Intelligible? An Examination of the Impact of Musical Ability and Individual Differences on Language Perception.” Journal of Intelligence 11 (3): 43. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11030043.
Christiner, Markus, and Christine Groß. 2025. “Parallels Between Second Language Mastery and Musical Proficiency: Individual Differences in Auditory Phonological Pattern Recognition.” Languages 10 (11): 272. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10110272.
Christiner, Markus, Christine Groß, Annemarie Seither-Preisler, and Peter Schneider. 2021. “The Melody of Speech: What the Melodic Perception of Speech Reveals About Language Performance and Musical Abilities.” Languages 6 (3): 132. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6030132.
Christiner, Markus, and Susanne M. Reiterer. 2016. “Music, Song and Speech: A Closer Look at the Interfaces Between Musicality, Singing and Individual Differences in Phonetic Language Aptitude.” In Cognitive Individual Differences in Second Language Processing and Acquisition, edited by Gisela Granena, Daniel O. Jackson, and Yucel Yilmaz, 131–156. Bilingual Processing and Acquisition 3. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/bpa.3.07chr.
Christiner, Markus, and Susanne M. Reiterer. 2013. “Song and Speech: Examining the Link Between Singing Talent and Speech Imitation Ability.” Frontiers in Psychology 4: 874. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00874.
Christiner, Markus, Julia Renner, Christine Groß, Annemarie Seither-Preisler, Jan Benner, and Peter Schneider. 2022. “Singing Mandarin? What Short-Term Memory Capacity, Basic Auditory Skills, and Musical and Singing Abilities Reveal About Learning Mandarin.” Frontiers in Psychology 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.895063.
Christiner, Markus, Stefanie Rüdegger, and Susanne M. Reiterer. 2018. “Sing Chinese and Tap Tagalog? Predicting Individual Differences in Musical and Phonetic Aptitude Using Language Families Differing by Sound Typology.” International Journal of Multilingualism 15, no. 4: 455–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2018.1424171.
Coumel, Marion, Christine Groß, Sabine Sommer-Lolei, and Markus Christiner. 2023. “The Contribution of Music Abilities and Phonetic Aptitude to L2 Accent Faking Ability.” Languages 8 (1): 68. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010068.
Ding, Nai, Aniruddh D. Patel, Lin Chen, Henry Butler, Cheng Luo, and David Poeppel. 2017. “Temporal Modulations in Speech and Music.” Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 81, pt. B: 181–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.02.011.
Doughty, Catherine, Susan G. Campbell, Meredith A. Mislevy, Michael F. Bunting, Anita R. Bowles, and Joel T. Koeth. 2008. “Predicting Near-Native Ability: The Factor Structure and Reliability of the Hi-LAB.” In Selected Proceedings of the 2008 Second Language Research Forum, edited by T. Prior, Y. Watanabe, and S.-K. Lee, 10–31. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
François, Clément, Julie Chobert, Mireille Besson, and Daniele Schön. 2013. “Music Training for the Development of Speech Segmentation.” Cerebral Cortex 23, no. 9: 2038–43. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhs180.
Gagné, Françoys. 2004. “Transforming Gifts into Talents: The DMGT as a Developmental Theory.” High Ability Studies 15, no. 2: 119–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359813042000314682.
Gagné, Françoys. 2008. “Building Gifts into Talents: Brief Overview of the DMGT 2.0.” Gifted 152: 5–9.
Gordon, Edwin. 1967. A Three-Year Study of the Musical Aptitude Profile. Chicago: GIA.
Gordon, Edwin. 1979. Primary Measures of Music Audiation. Chicago: GIA.
Gordon, Edwin. 1982. Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation. Chicago: GIA.
Gordon, Edwin. 1989. Advanced Measures of Music Audiation. Chicago: GIA.
Ho, Yim-Chi, Mei-Chun Cheung, and Agnes S. Chan. 2003. “Music Training Improves Verbal but Not Visual Memory.” Neuropsychology 17, no. 3: 439–50. https://doi.org/10.1037/0894-4105.17.3.439.
Jørgensen, Harald. 2008. “What Is a Talent, How Is It Identified, and How Is It Developed?” Paper presented at the conference “Precollege Education and Talent Development,” European Association of Conservatoires (AEC), Oslo, Norway.
Joyal, Marilyne, Alexandre Sicard, Virginia Penhune, Philip L. Jackson, and Pascale Tremblay. 2024. “Attention, Working Memory, and Inhibitory Control in Aging.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1541, no. 1: 163–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.15230.
Law, Lily N. C. 2012a. “Assessing and Understanding Individual Differences in Music Perception Abilities.” PhD diss., University of York, United Kingdom.
Law, Lily N. C., and Marcel Zentner. 2012b. “Assessing Musical Abilities Objectively.”
PLOS ONE 7, no. 12: e52508. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052508. Meara, Paul. 2005. LLAMA Language Aptitude Tests. Swansea: Lognostics.
Milovanov, Riia. 2009. The Connectivity of Musical Aptitude and Foreign Language Learning Skills: Neural and Behavioural Evidence. PhD diss., University of Turku, Finland.
Milovanov, Riia, and Mari Tervaniemi. 2011. “The Interplay Between Musical and Linguistic Aptitudes.” Frontiers in Psychology 2: 321. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00321.
Moreno, Sylvain. 2009. “Can Music Influence Language and Cognition?” Contemporary Music Review 28, no. 3: 329–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/07494460903404410.
Parry, Thomas, and James Child. 1990. “Preliminary Investigation of the Relationship Between VORD, MLAT and Language Proficiency.” Language Aptitude Reconsidered, edited by Thomas Parry and Charles W. Stansfield, 30–66. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Patel, Aniruddh D. 2007. Music, Language, and the Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Patel, Aniruddh D. 2011. “Why Would Musical Training Benefit the Neural Encoding of Speech? The OPERA Hypothesis.” Frontiers in Psychology 2: 142. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00142.
Peretz, Isabelle, Dominique Vuvan, Marie-Élaine Lagrois, and Jorge L. Armony. 2015. “Neural Overlap in Processing Music and Speech.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 370 (1664): 20140090. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0090.
Perrachione, Tyler K., Evelina G. Fedorenko, Louis Vinke, Edward Gibson, and Laura
C. Dilley. 2013. “Evidence for Shared Cognitive Processing of Pitch in Music and Language.” PLOS ONE 8 (8): e73372. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0073372.
Rogalsky, Corianne, Feng Rong, Kourosh Saberi, and Gregory Hickok. 2011. “Functional Anatomy of Language and Music Perception.” Journal of Neuroscience 31, no. 10: 3843–52. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4515-10.2011.
Seashore, Carl Emil. 1919a. Manual of Instructions and Interpretations for Measures of Musical Talent. New York: Columbia Graphophone.
Seashore, Carl Emil. 1919b. The Psychology of Musical Talent. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.
Seither-Preisler, Annemarie, Richard Parncutt, and Peter Schneider. 2014. “Size and Synchronization of Auditory Cortex Promotes Musical, Literacy, and Attentional Skills in Children.” Journal of Neuroscience 34, no. 33: 10937–49. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5315-13.2014.
Wallentin, Mikkel, Andreas Højlund Nielsen, Morten Friis-Olivarius, Christian Vuust, and Peter Vuust. 2010. “The Musical Ear Test.” Learning and Individual Differences 20, no. 3: 188–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2010.02.004.
Wong, Patrick C. M., and Tyler K. Perrachione. 2007a. “Learning Pitch Patterns in Lexical Identification.” Applied Psycholinguistics 28, no. 4: 565–85. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716407070312.
Wong, Patrick C. M., Erika Skoe, Nicole M. Russo, Tasha Dees, and Nina Kraus. 2007b. “Musical Experience Shapes Human Brainstem Encoding of Linguistic Pitch Patterns.” Nature Neuroscience 10, no. 4: 420–22. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1872.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Mūzikas akadēmijas raksti
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
