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Record W4415303111 · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1659705

Music training and language learning improve verbal memory performance but do not change white matter characteristics of the splenium: a longitudinal DTI study

2025· article· en· W4415303111 on OpenAlexafffund
Anja‐Xiaoxing Cui, Negin Motamed Yeganeh, Nancy Hermiston, Janet F. Werker, Lara A. Boyd

Bibliographic record

VenueFrontiers in Psychology · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldNeuroscience
TopicNeuroscience and Music Perception
Canadian institutionsUniversity of British Columbia
FundersSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of CanadaUniversität Wien
KeywordsVerbal memorySingingTraining (meteorology)Verbal learningLanguage acquisitionCognitionNeural correlates of consciousnessCalifornia Verbal Learning Test

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Introduction: Previous research has suggested associations between memory performance, white matter characteristics, and training in music performance. Associations of memory performance and white matter characteristics have also been found with language learning. Given the proposed links between music training and language learning, we investigate here, whether a year of different types of training (music, language, both, or other), related to white matter characteristics in the corpus callosum and the fornix and verbal and visuospatial memory performance changes. Methods: We obtained verbal and visuospatial memory performance scores (California Verbal Learning Test Second Edition; Wechsler Memory Scale Fourth Edition, Designs 1 and 2) and diffusion tensor imaging data from 65 young adult participants before and after a year during which they enrolled in music performance classes, language learning classes, both types of classes, or other types of classes. Results: Analyses revealed a significant linear contrast of class type showing improvements in verbal memory scores for participants who had taken either music performance training or language learning classes, and the biggest improvement for participants that had taken both types of classes. No significant effects were observed for visuospatial memory. Regression analyses further indicated that fractional anisotropy in the splenium at time point 1 significantly predicted verbal memory change but that the class type factor did not add explanatory power. Discussion: Our findings indicate that both music training and language learning can lead to verbal memory improvements and that both types of training can compound, for example, in the form of singing or opera training to lead to greater improvements. Thus, training in music performance and language learning may have additive effects on verbal memory improvements. While callosal white matter characteristics related to verbal memory changes in our sample, the neural mechanism of the shown training effects is presumably another.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.001
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.002
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: Observational
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.009
Threshold uncertainty score0.018

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0010.002
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.000
Bibliometrics0.0010.001
Science and technology studies0.0010.000
Scholarly communication0.0010.001
Open science0.0000.000
Research integrity0.0010.001
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0010.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.048
GPT teacher head0.308
Teacher spread0.260 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designObservational
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations0
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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