Title: Piano or Drum? Differential Effects of Pitched and Unpitched Musicianship on Tone Identification and Word Learning

Abstract

<p>Different instruments have different demands on pitch processing. To further investigate music-to-language transfer<em>,</em> this study examined the effects of pitched and unpitched musicianship on tone identification and word learning. A total of 44 Cantonese pitched musicians, unpitched musicians, and non-musicians were compared on their accuracy on tone identification and word learning. For tone identification, the pitched musicians, but not the unpitched musicians, outperformed the non-musicians. For word learning, three groups performed similarly in session 1. In session 7, the pitched musicians achieved significantly higher accuracy than the non-musicians, but the unpitched musicians did not. From the theoretical perspective, the results offer fine-grained empirical support to the precision element in the OPERA hypothesis: higher precision demand in music training drives music-to-language transfer. Methodologically, this study emphasizes the importance of considering the heterogeneity of musicianship when studying music-to-language transfer.</p>