Poster #2 - Musical Experience and Language Exposure is Associated with Knowledge Generation

• In Event: Poster Session 06

Abstract

Knowledge is formed in a variety of ways—through direct experiences, inductive and deductive reasoning, transitive inference, and the focus of this research: self-derivation through memory integration. Knowledge extension occurs through self-derivation when one integrates two separate but related facts to form new information that was not explicitly taught. Previous research demonstrates that there are substantial developmental (Bauer et al., 2016) and individual (Varga & Bauer, 2017) differences in self-derivation performance. Verbal comprehension, a proxy of accumulated semantic knowledge, relates to self-derivation performance, yet it does not fully account for the variability (Esposito & Bauer, 2018). Prior investigations have found that individuals with more musical experience show greater gains in cognitive ability across the lifespan (Okely et al., 2022). Similarly, exposure to more than one language relates to higher executive functioning and other cognitive correlates (Akhtar & Menjiar, 2012).
In the current study, we assessed whether musical experience and language exposure relate to 8- to 12-year-old children’s abilities to self-derive new knowledge. We tested 160 participants (M=10.45 years, range=8.13-12.91, 84 girls) on 10 sets of integrable facts and calculated a self-derivation score (proportion correct) for each participant. Parents filled out a questionnaire asking about their children’s musical instrument experience and exposure to other languages.
Correlations replicated prior research, such that age and verbal comprehension positively correlated with self-derivation performance (Pearson’s r=.384, p-value<.001, n=156 and Pearson’s r=.175, p-value=.028, N=156, respectively). About half of our sample (53%, n=84) had received music training in some capacity. An independent samples t-test found that children with musical instrument training had significantly higher self-derivation performance (M=0.37, SD=.21, n=84) than children with no musical instrument training (M=.26, SD=.19, n=74) t(155)=3.26, p=.001, Cohen’s d=0.5. As well, years of music training positively correlated with self-derivation performance (Pearson’s r=.243, p-value=.002. About 76% (n=119) of the sample had exposure to a language in addition to English in some capacity. Self-derivation performance did not differ between children who had been exposed to another language (M=.33, SD=.21, n=119) and those who had not (M=.28, SD=.18, n=38) t(155) = -1.15, p-value = .252. However, the number of languages with which a child had experience positively correlated with self-derivation performance (Pearson’s r=.198, p-value=.013, respectively). Finally, a linear regression controlling for age and verbal comprehension revealed that both years of music training and number of languages significantly predicted self-deviation performance above and beyond the effects of age and verbal comprehension (p-values=.046 and <.001, respectively), overall model: F(4, 155)=13.97, p-value<.001, R2=.27.
The findings of this research suggests that both musical experience and language exposure are factors that contribute to individual variability in the important cognitive process of self-derivation. We are in the process of analyzing additional measures collected as part of a larger study (e.g., spatial abilities, visual-auditory learning, and passage comprehension), for insights into possible explanatory mechanisms.

Authors

• Katherine Anne Lee, Emory University
  Presenting Author

• Patricia J Bauer, Emory University