Journal Article Summary

Summary: Training of preschool pupils on the piano keyboard improves performance on spatial-temporal reasoning tests.
Title: Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial-temporal reasoning
Name: Joshua Bleier
Date: 12/08/02
   
Reference: Rauscher, F, Shaw, G. et al (1997). Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial-temporal reasoning. Neurological Research, 19, 2-8.
Problem: Inner-city youth historically perform poorly on standardized math tests. There have been numerous attempts at alleviating this situation with varying degrees of success. The author hypothesizes that aspects of human brain structure lead to a causal relationship between music understanding and spatial-temporal reasoning (STR) capabilities (Considered the building blocks for improved performance in math and science). These results remain constant over a 24-hour period, indicating that the capabilities have been incorporated into long-term memory. The author further hypothesizes that it is the relationship between pitch and the distance between keys on the keyboard that is critical to the improvement in STR.
Context: 78 preschool students at a Los Angeles inner-city school were tested using a standard control/variable methodology. A control group received no after-school training. One group of 34 received 6 months of 1/2-hour after-school classes in piano keyboard lessons, another group of 20 received lessons in computer literacy, and a final group took lessons in singing. Students were given tests in Spatial-Temporal reasoning and spatial recognition before the training began, again at the end of the training, and again 24 hours after the previous test.
Findings: Tests showed no statistically significant improvement in the control group, or in the groups that received computer literacy or singing lessons. However, the group that received the piano instruction improved by more than one standard deviation of the standardized test in their STR scores, and those scores were maintained 24 hours later in the final STR test, linking the improvement to long-term memory.
Recommendations:

The author hypothesizes that it is the relationship between pitch and distance between keys that triggers the development of STR skills. However, this hypothesis is not tested in subsequent research by the authors. Instead, they verify the effectiveness of these results on 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade students, and augment the keyboard training with computer-based STR educational games and directed math lessons. This research has yielded important results, but it would be useful to test the validity of the pitch/distance hypothesis.
I would pursue verification of this hypothesis by testing students in the following manner:

  1. Include training on another instrument that conserves the pitch-distance relationship, such as the guitar, vibraphone, or, to a lesser extent, the trombone.
  2. Train children on instruments that do not conserve this relationship, such as the trumpet, saxophone or flute.


It may turn out that the reason that keyboard-trained students perform better at STR than voice-trained students has to do with something other than relationship between pitch and distance (For instance, the physicality of the instrument); this would widen the choices of instrumentation available for study that would still aid in the development of Spatial-Temporal reasoning skills.