Strings Versus Keys: A Comparison of Violinists, Pianists, and Nonmusicians in Lexical Tone Perception and Tone Word Learning

Purpose: Correlational research has found that musicians outperform nonmusicians in lexical tone perception and tone word learning. In these studies, participants were dichotomized as either musicians or nonmusicians. However, musicianship is nonbinary, as different musical instruments have different pitch processing demands. Examining different types of musicianship would enable a more comprehensive understanding of music-to-language transfer. The present study investigated whether violinists would outperform pianists and nonmusicians in discriminating and identifying Thai contour tones and, if so, whether the violinists' advantage in Thai contour tones would also apply to Thai tone word learning. Method: Eighty-one Cantonese violinists, pianists, and nonmusicians completed a Thai tone discrimination task, a Thai tone identification task, and seven sessions of tone word identification training. Participants also completed a working memory task, a nonverbal intelligence task, and an inhibitory control task. Results: In the Thai tone discrimination task, the violinists, pianists, and nonmusicians performed similarly. In the Thai tone identification task, the violinists and pianists performed similarly, but both groups outperformed the nonmusicians. In the Thai tone word learning task, both the violinists and the pianists outperformed the nonmusicians, with violinists demonstrating the largest musical advantage. Unexpectedly, the violinists' advantage applied to some but not all contour and level tones. Conclusions: The results indicated that music-to-language transfer in tone word learning hinges on the type of musical instrument. Theoretically, there is a need to introduce elements of higher level linguistic processing and selectivity into the Overlap, Precision, Emotion, Repetition, and Attention hypothesis. Practically, the study suggests the potential of violin training in facilitating nonnative tone word learning.