2018

Chang-Arana, Álvaro M.; Luck, Geoff

This study examined potential differences in inhibitory control task performance among transposing musicians, non-transposing musicians, and non-musicians. Twenty-nine participants were recruited and categorized into three groups: transposing musicians (n = 9), non-transposing musicians (n = 10) and non-musicians (n = 10) depending on their previous skills and experience. Participants were presented with a music Stroop task and a classic Stroop task. In the music Stroop task, participants were required to select the name of a musical note written inside the (corresponding or different) whole-note on a staff. In the classic Stroop task, participants were presented with colour words written in a corresponding or different colour and had to choose the font colour while ignoring the written name of the colour. Both tasks took into account participants’ background, including their previous knowledge of note-naming systems, clef-familiarity and mother tongue. Contrary to predictions, transposing musicians did not perform significantly differently from non-transposing musicians on the music Stroop task. Additionally, transposing musicians, non-transposing musicians, and non-musicians performed similarly on the classic Stroop task. Failure of the results to support the predictions suggests that future research might increase the sample size and quantify transposing skills in a different manner.