Attention
Do kids who keep the beat in music class pay better attention?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Children who played more precisely in time with their teacher in a group music class were rated by their teachers as more attentive and showed steadier performance on a computer attention task.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cross-sectional — Single-session correlational study: rhythmic synchrony recorded with custom gamelan-like instruments during a group music class, correlated with teacher SWAN ratings and Eriksen flanker performance, controlling for grade, gender and playing group
- N
- N=102 · 102 elementary schoolchildren in grades 2-6; participant recruitment details beyond this are not included in the available text
- Population
- Elementary schoolchildren aged 7-12 in a group music class
- Outcome
- Vector strength of synchrony with the instructor's beat; SWAN teacher-rated inattention and combined ADHD-like behaviour; flanker-task accuracy, reaction time and reaction-time variability
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Key findings
Better synchronisers were rated as more attentive and as showing fewer ADHD-like behaviours, were more accurate on congruent flanker trials, had less variable reaction times, and showed a different congruent-incongruent reaction-time difference; six of the nine measures correlated significantly with synchrony. The pattern held, though somewhat weaker, when the 20% of children with the most ADHD-like ratings were removed, suggesting the link runs across the normal range. Girls synchronised better and were rated more attentive than boys, so gender was treated as a covariate.
Methodology
The researchers built gamelan-like instruments with sensors on each key so that every child's mallet strikes could be recorded separately during an ordinary group music class. Children in grades 2 to 6 tried to play along with an instructor's steady beat for one minute, four times in a 30-minute session, and each child's synchrony was scored with a 'vector strength' measure. Homeroom teachers rated each child on the SWAN scale of attention and hyperactivity, and children completed an Eriksen flanker task; the team then computed rank correlations controlling for grade, gender and playing group.
Limitations
The study is correlational, so it cannot say that rhythm training would improve attention or that attention problems cause poor timing; the authors say this explicitly. Attention was measured mostly by a single teacher rating and one short flanker task, and the study included no measures of school achievement. Group playing also demands selective listening to the leader's instrument, which may contribute to the synchrony score independent of timing ability. Details such as how children were recruited and the exact correlation sizes are not in the available text (they appear in tables).
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