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AbstractChildren learn the structure of the music of their culture similarly to how they learn the language to which they are exposed in their daily environment. Furthermore, as with language, children acquire this musical knowledge without formal instruction. Two critical aspects of musical pitch structure in Western tonal music are key membership (understanding which notes belong in a key and which do not) and harmony (understanding which notes combine to form chords and which notes and chords tend to follow others). The early developmental trajectory of the acquisition of this knowledge remains unclear, in part because of the difficulty of testing young children. In two experiments, we investigated 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds' enculturation to Western musical pitch using a novel age‐appropriate and engaging behavioral task (Experiment 1) and electroencephalography (EEG; Experiment 2). In Experiment 1 we found behavioral evidence that 5‐year‐olds were sensitive to key membership but not to harmony, and no evidence that 4‐year‐olds were sensitive to either. However, in Experiment 2 we found neurophysiological evidence that 4‐year‐olds were sensitive to both key membership and harmony. Our results suggest that musical enculturation has a long developmental trajectory, and that children may have some knowledge of key membership and harmony before that knowledge can be expressed through explicit behavioral judgments.

AbstractPrevious studies suggest that musical training in children can positively affect various aspects of development. However, it remains unknown as to how early in development musical experience can have an effect, the nature of any such effects, and whether different types of music experience affect development differently. We found that random assignment to 6 months of active participatory musical experience beginning at 6 months of age accelerates acquisition of culture‐specific knowledge of Western tonality in comparison to a similar amount of passive exposure to music. Furthermore, infants assigned to the active musical experience showed superior development of prelinguistic communicative gestures and social behaviour compared to infants assigned to the passive musical experience. These results indicate that (1) infants can engage in meaningful musical training when appropriate pedagogical approaches are used, (2) active musical participation in infancy enhances culture‐specific musical acquisition, and (3) active musical participation in infancy impacts social and communication development.

Abstract We show that infants' long‐term memory representations for melodies are not just reduced to the structural features of relative pitches and durations, but contain surface or performance tempo‐ and timbre‐specific information. Using a head turn preference procedure, we found that after a one week exposure to an old English folk song, infants preferred to listen to a novel folk song, indicating that they remembered the familiarized melody. However, if the tempo (25% faster or slower) or instrument timbre (harp vs. piano) of the familiarized melody was changed at test, infants showed no preference, indicating that they remembered the specific tempo and timbre of the melodies. The results are consistent with an exemplar‐based model of memory in infancy rather than one in which structural features are extracted and performance features forgotten.

AbstractAdults who move together to a shared musical beat synchronously as opposed to asynchronously are subsequently more likely to display prosocial behaviors toward each other. The development of musical behaviors during infancy has been described previously, but the social implications of such behaviors in infancy have been little studied. In Experiment 1, each of 48 14‐month‐old infants was held by an assistant and gently bounced to music while facing the experimenter, who bounced either in‐synchrony or out‐of‐synchrony with the way the infant was bounced. The infants were then placed in a situation in which they had the opportunity to help the experimenter by handing objects to her that she had 'accidently' dropped. We found that 14‐month‐old infants were more likely to engage in altruistic behavior and help the experimenter after having been bounced to music in synchrony with her, compared to infants who were bounced to music asynchronously with her. The results of Experiment 2, using anti‐phase bouncing, suggest that this is due to the contingency of the synchronous movements as opposed to movement symmetry. These findings support the hypothesis that interpersonal motor synchrony might be one key component of musical engagement that encourages social bonds among group members, and suggest that this motor synchrony to music may promote the very early development of altruistic behavior.A video abstract of this article can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaqWehfDm7c&feature=youtu.be

Abstract Phillips‐Silver and Trainor (2005) demonstrated a link between movement and the metrical interpretation of rhythm patterns in 7‐month‐old infants. Infants bounced on every second beat of a rhythmic pattern with no auditory accents later preferred to listen to an accented version of the pattern with accents every second beat (duple or march meter), whereas infants bounced on every third beat of the same rhythmic pattern preferred to listen to a version with accents every third beat (triple or waltz meter). The present study compared infants participating in Kindermusik classes with infants not participating in music classes. In Kindermusik classes infants receive enriched experience moving to music. Following Western musical norms, the majority of the music samples in the classes are in duple meter. During the preference test, Kindermusik infants listened longer overall, indicating heightened interest in musical rhythms. Both groups listened longer to the accented version that matched how they had been bounced, but only the Kindermusik group showed a stronger preference in the case of duple bouncing than in the case of triple bouncing. We conclude that musical classes for infants can accelerate the development of culture‐specific metrical perception.

AbstractThe urge to move to music (groove) depends in part on rhythmic syncopation in the music. For adults, the syncopation‐groove relationship has an inverted‐U shape: listeners want to move most to rhythms that have some, but not too much, syncopation. However, we do not know whether the syncopation‐groove relationship is relatively sensitive to, or resistant to, a listener's experience. In two sets of experiments, we tested whether the syncopation‐groove relationship is affected by dance experience or changes through development in childhood. Dancers and nondancers rated groove for 50 rhythmic patterns varying in syncopation. Dancers' and nondancers' ratings did not differ (and Bayesian tests provided substantial evidence that they were equivalent) in terms of mean groove and the optimal level of syncopation. Similarly, ballet and hip‐hop dancers' syncopation‐groove relationships did not differ. However, dancers had more robust syncopation‐groove relationships (higher goodness‐of‐fit) than nondancers. Children (3–6 years old) completed two tasks to assess their syncopation‐groove relationships: In a 2‐alternative‐forced choice task, children compared rhythms from 2 of 3 possible levels of syncopation (low, medium, and high) and chose which rhythm in a pair was better for dancing. In a dance task, children danced to the same rhythms. Results from both tasks indicated that for children, as for adults, medium syncopation rhythms elicit more groove than low syncopation rhythms. A follow‐up experiment replicated the 2‐alternative‐forced choice task results. Taken together, the results suggest the optimal level of syncopation for groove is resistant to experience, although experience may affect the robustness of the inverted‐U relationship.Research HighlightsIn Experiment 1, dancers and nondancers rated groove (the urge to move) for musical rhythms, demonstrating the same inverted‐U relationships between syncopation and groove.In Experiment 2, children and adults both chose rhythms with moderate syncopation more than low syncopation as more groove‐inducing or better for dancing.Children also danced more for moderate than low syncopation, showing a close perception‐behavior relationship across tasks.Similarities in the syncopation‐groove relationship regardless of dance training and age suggest that this perceptual and behavioral groove response to rhythmic complexity may be quite resistant to experience.

AbstractAccurate perception and production of emotional states is important for successful social interactions across the lifespan. Previous research has shown that when identifying emotion in faces, preschool children are more likely to confuse emotions that share valence, but differ in arousal (e.g. sadness and anger) than emotions that share arousal, but differ on valence (e.g. anger and joy). Here, we examined the influence of valence and arousal on children's production of emotion in music. Three‐, 5‐ and 7‐year‐old children recruited from the greater Hamilton area (N = 74) 'performed' music to produce emotions using a self‐pacing paradigm, in which participants controlled the onset and offset of each chord in a musical sequence by repeatedly pressing and lifting the same key on a MIDI piano. Key press velocity controlled the loudness of each chord. Results showed that (a) differentiation of emotions by 5‐year‐old children was mainly driven by arousal of the target emotion, with differentiation based on both valence and arousal at 7 years and (b) tempo and loudness were used to differentiate emotions earlier in development than articulation. The results indicate that the developmental trajectory of emotion understanding in music may differ from the developmental trajectory in other domains.

AbstractFamilial risk for developmental dyslexia can compromise auditory and speech processing and subsequent language and literacy development. According to the phonological deficit theory, supporting phonological development during the sensitive infancy period could prevent or ameliorate future dyslexic symptoms. Music is an established method for supporting auditory and speech processing and even language and literacy, but no previous studies have investigated its benefits for infants at risk for developmental language and reading disorders. We pseudo‐randomized N∼150 infants at risk for dyslexia to vocal or instrumental music listening interventions at 0–6 months, or to a no‐intervention control group. Music listening was used as an easy‐to‐administer, cost‐effective intervention in early infancy. Mismatch responses (MMRs) elicited by speech‐sound changes were recorded with electroencephalogram (EEG) before (at birth) and after (at 6 months) the intervention and at a 28 months follow‐up. We expected particularly the vocal intervention to promote phonological development, evidenced by enhanced speech‐sound MMRs and their fast maturation. We found enhanced positive MMR amplitudes in the vocal music listening intervention group after but not prior to the intervention. Other music activities reported by parents did not differ between the three groups, indicating that the group effects were attributable to the intervention. The results speak for the use of vocal music in early infancy to support speech processing and subsequent language development in infants at developmental risk.Research Highlights
Dyslexia‐risk infants were pseudo‐randomly assigned to a vocal or instrumental music listening intervention at home from birth to 6 months of age.
Neural mismatch responses (MMRs) to speech‐sound changes were enhanced in the vocal music intervention group after but not prior to the intervention.
Even passive vocal music listening in early infancy can support phonological development known to be deficient in dyslexia‐risk.