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. 2013 Aug 7;8(8):e71630.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0071630. Print 2013.

Do older professional musicians have cognitive advantages?

Tarek Amer  1 , Beste Kalender, Lynn Hasher, Sandra E Trehub, Yukwal Wong
Affiliations

Do older professional musicians have cognitive advantages?

Tarek Amer et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The current study investigates whether long-term music training and practice are associated with enhancement of general cognitive abilities in late middle-aged to older adults. Professional musicians and non-musicians who were matched on age, education, vocabulary, and general health were compared on a near-transfer task involving auditory processing and on far-transfer tasks that measured spatial span and aspects of cognitive control. Musicians outperformed non-musicians on the near-transfer task, on most but not all of the far-transfer tasks, and on a composite measure of cognitive control. The results suggest that sustained music training or involvement is associated with improved aspects of cognitive functioning in older adults.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Mean Stroop effects for musicians and non-musicians on the pitch-conflict and word-conflict conditions.
Musicians showed similar Stroop effects for the pitch and word conflict conditions, but non-musicians showed a significantly larger Stroop effect for the pitch condition compared to the word condition. Error bars are standard errors.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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