scholarly journals The Edinburgh Lifetime Musical Experience Questionnaire (ELMEQ): Responses and non-musical correlates in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. e0254176
Author(s):  
Judith A. Okely ◽  
Ian J. Deary ◽  
Katie Overy
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Birth Cohort ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Musical Ability ◽  
Lifetime Experience ◽  
Lothian Birth Cohort ◽  
Experience Questionnaire

There is growing evidence of the potential effects of musical training on the human brain, as well as increasing interest in the potential contribution of musical experience to healthy ageing. Conducting research on these topics with older adults requires a comprehensive assessment of musical experience across the lifespan, as well as an understanding of which variables might correlate with musical training and experience (such as personality traits or years of education). The present study introduces a short questionnaire for assessing lifetime musical training and experience in older populations: the Edinburgh Lifetime Musical Experience Questionnaire (ELMEQ). 420 participants from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 completed the ELMEQ at a mean age of 82 years. We used their responses to the ELMEQ to address three objectives: 1) to report the prevalence of lifetime musical experience in a sample of older adults; 2) to demonstrate how certain item-level responses can be used to model latent variables quantifying experience in different musical domains (playing a musical instrument, singing, self-reported musical ability, and music listening); and 3) to examine non-musical (lifespan) correlates of these domains. In this cohort, 420 of 431 participants (97%) completed the questionnaire. 40% of participants reported some lifetime experience of playing a musical instrument, starting at a median age of 10 years and playing for a median of 5 years. 38% of participants reported some lifetime experience of singing in a group. Non-musical variables of childhood environment, years of education, childhood cognitive ability, female sex, extraversion, history of arthritis and fewer constraints on activities of daily living were found to be associated, variously, with the domains of playing a musical instrument, singing, self-reported musical ability, and music listening. The ELMEQ was found to be an effective research tool with older adults and is made freely available for future research.

scholarly journals Musical experience relates to functional connectivity in older adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 714-714
Author(s):  
Meishan Ai ◽  
Timothy Morris ◽  
Laura Chaddock-Heyman ◽  
Psyche Loui ◽  
Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Protective Factor ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Aging Brain ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Grey Matter Volume ◽  
Precentral Gyrus ◽  
Age Related

Abstract Previous studies have shown that engaging in musical activities throughout the lifespan may buffer age-related decline in auditory and motor function, as well as in general cognitive function. MRI studies have demonstrated that individuals with musical training and experience exhibited greater grey matter volume and functional connectivity in extensive brain regions, especially in auditory and motor systems, compared to matched controls with no particular musical training or experience. Therefore, musical activity is a potential protective factor for brain health across lifespan. However, how lifespan musical experience shapes functional connectivity in older adults is still unknown. The current analysis investigated whether general musical experience (Goldsmith Music Sophistication Index) is associated with functional connectivity in older adults (age=65.7±4.4, n=69), focusing on seed regions in primary motor areas (bilateral precentral gyrus) and primary auditory regions (bilateral anterior/posterior superior temporal gyrus) and their functional connectivity towards other areas throughout the whole brain. We found that older adults with more musical experience showed greater functional connectivity between anterior superior temporal gyrus and insula (R2=0.10, p=0.01), and between posterior superior temporal gyrus and cerebellum (R2=0.08, p=0.02). However, musical experience and music-related functional connectivity was not significantly correlated with general cognitive functions in our sample. Overall, our findings suggest that older adults with more musical experience might be more efficient in some aspects of auditory processing and auditory-motor skills, but this may not transfer towards domain-general cognitive tests. Our results support the notion that even non-professional engagement in musical experiences may afford benefits to the aging brain.

Perceptually Correlated Parameters of Musical Instrument Tones

2011 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Beauchamp
Keyword(s):  
Musical Training ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Sound Synthesis ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Music Culture ◽  
Spectral Centroid ◽  
The Time Domain ◽  
Musical Signals ◽  
Musical Sounds ◽  
Correlated Parameters

AbstractIn Western music culture instruments have been developed according to unique instrument acoustical features based on types of excitation, resonance, and radiation. These include the woodwind, brass, bowed and plucked string, and percussion families of instruments. On the other hand, instrument performance depends on musical training, and music listening depends on perception of instrument output. Since musical signals are easier to understand in the frequency domain than the time domain, much effort has been made to perform spectral analysis and extract salient parameters, such as spectral centroids, in order to create simplified synthesis models for musical instrument sound synthesis. Moreover, perceptual tests have been made to determine the relative importance of various parameters, such as spectral centroid variation, spectral incoherence, and spectral irregularity. It turns out that the importance of particular parameters depends on both their strengths within musical sounds as well as the robustness of their effect on perception. Methods that the author and his colleagues have used to explore timbre perception are: 1) discrimination of parameter reduction or elimination; 2) dissimilarity judgments together with multidimensional scaling; 3) informal listening to sound morphing examples. This paper discusses ramifications of this work for sound synthesis and timbre transposition.

scholarly journals The epigenetic clock and objectively measured sedentary and walking behavior in older adults: the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catharine R. Gale ◽  
◽  
Riccardo E. Marioni ◽  
Iva Čukić ◽  
Sebastien F. Chastin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Birth Cohort ◽  
Epigenetic Clock ◽  
Walking Behavior ◽  
Lothian Birth Cohort ◽  
Objectively Measured

scholarly journals Musical experience partially counteracts temporal speech processing deficits in mild cognitive impairment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin N. Price ◽  
Gavin M. Bidelman
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Speech Processing ◽  
Single Channel ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Training Experience ◽  
Temporal Precision ◽  
Age Related

ABSTRACTMild cognitive impairment (MCI) commonly impacts older adults resulting in more rapid cognitive and behavioral declines than typical aging. Individuals with MCI can exhibit impaired receptive speech abilities that may reflect neurophysiological changes in auditory-sensory processing prior to usual cognitive deficits. Benefits from current interventions targeting communication difficulties in MCI are limited. Yet, neuroplasticity associated with musical experience has been implicated in improving neural representations of speech and offsetting age-related declines in perception. Here, we asked whether these experience-dependent effects of musicianship might extend to aberrant aging and offer some degree of cognitive protection against MCI. During a vowel categorization task, we recorded single-channel EEGs in older adults with putative MCI to evaluate speech encoding across subcortical and cortical levels of the auditory system. Critically, listeners varied in their duration of formal musical training experience (0-21 years). Older musicians exhibited sharpened temporal precision in auditory cortical responses suggesting musical experience produces more efficient processing of acoustic features by offsetting age-related neural delays. Additionally, we found robustness of brainstem responses predicted severity of cognitive decline suggesting early speech representations are sensitive to pre-clinical stages of cognitive impairment. Our preliminary results extend prior studies by demonstrating positive benefits of musical experience in older adults with emergent cognitive impairments.

Musical Experience Shapes Neural Processing

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-86
Author(s):  
Wido Nager ◽  
Tilla Franke ◽  
Tobias Wagner-Altendorf ◽  
Eckart Altenmüller ◽  
Thomas F. Münte
Keyword(s):  
Mismatch Negativity ◽  
Pure Tone ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Active Listening ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Neural Adaptations

Abstract. Playing a musical instrument professionally has been shown to lead to structural and functional neural adaptations, making musicians valuable subjects for neuroplasticity research. Here, we follow the hypothesis that specific musical demands further shape neural processing. To test this assumption, we subjected groups of professional drummers, professional woodwind players, and nonmusicians to pure tone sequences and drum sequences in which infrequent anticipations of tones or drum beats had been inserted. Passively listening to these sequences elicited a mismatch negativity to the temporally deviant stimuli which was greater in the musicians for tone series and particularly large for drummers for drum sequences. In active listening conditions drummers more accurately and more quickly detected temporally deviant stimuli.

scholarly journals Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation combined with listening to preferred music on memory in older adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricky Chow ◽  
Alix Noly-Gandon ◽  
Aline Moussard ◽  
Jennifer D. Ryan ◽  
Claude Alain
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Recognition Memory ◽  
Direct Current ◽  
Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation ◽  
Digit Span ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Subsequent Performance ◽  
Direct Current Stimulation

AbstractListening to autobiographically-salient music (i.e., music evoking personal memories from the past), and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) have each been suggested to temporarily improve older adults’ subsequent performance on memory tasks. Limited research has investigated the effects of combining both tDCS and music listening together on cognition. The present study examined whether anodal tDCS stimulation over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (2 mA, 20 min) with concurrent listening to autobiographically-salient music amplified subsequent changes in working memory and recognition memory in older adults than either tDCS or music listening alone. In a randomized sham-controlled crossover study, 14 healthy older adults (64–81 years) participated in three neurostimulation conditions: tDCS with music listening (tDCS + Music), tDCS in silence (tDCS-only), or sham-tDCS with music listening (Sham + Music), each separated by at least a week. Working memory was assessed pre- and post-stimulation using a digit span task, and recognition memory was assessed post-stimulation using an auditory word recognition task (WRT) during which electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Performance on the backwards digit span showed improvement in tDCS + Music, but not in tDCS-only or Sham + Music conditions. Although no differences in behavioural performance were observed in the auditory WRT, changes in neural correlates underlying recognition memory were observed following tDCS + Music compared to Sham + Music. Findings suggest listening to autobiographically-salient music may amplify the effects of tDCS for working memory, and highlight the potential utility of neurostimulation combined with personalized music to improve cognitive performance in the aging population.

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