The relationship between music attainment and age of acquisition on verbal memory

Previous research showed a relationship between music learning and enhanced cognitive skills. This study examined the impact of various music learning conditions on verbal memory. Twenty-three highly-trained musicians, 20 amateur musicians and 45 undergraduate controls were tested on various musical abilities and verbal memory. Results showed that when taking into account general education, the three groups differed significantly in their melodic organisation, temporal perception, incidental music memory and verbal memory. However, only the highly-trained musicians performed significantly better than the controls in both music and immediate verbal memory recall. Interestingly, early music learners who started learning music at age 7 or before did not outperform the late learners in both music and verbal memory. Musicians who were currently learning music were better in musical abilities but not verbal memory. The results reinforced previous studies showing a relationship between high music qualification or professional attainment and verbal memory