Musicians react faster and are better multisensory integrators

•A simple unisensory and multisensory audiotactile reaction time task was used.•Musicians have faster auditory, tactile, and audiotactile reaction times.•Musicians have an altered statistical use of multisensory information. The results from numerous investigations suggest that musical training migh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain and cognition 2017-02, Vol.111, p.156-162
Main Authors: Landry, Simon P., Champoux, François
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Audio-somatosensory
Audio-tactile
Auditory Perception - physiology
Female
Humans
Male
Multisensory integration
Music
Musical training
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Reaction time
Reaction Time - physiology
Reaction time task
Sensory integration
Statistics
Tactile stimuli
Touch Perception - physiology
Young Adult
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Summary:•A simple unisensory and multisensory audiotactile reaction time task was used.•Musicians have faster auditory, tactile, and audiotactile reaction times.•Musicians have an altered statistical use of multisensory information. The results from numerous investigations suggest that musical training might enhance how senses interact. Despite repeated confirmation of anatomical and structural changes in visual, tactile, and auditory regions, significant changes have only been reported in the audiovisual domain and for the detection of audio-tactile incongruencies. In the present study, we aim at testing whether long-term musical training might also enhance other multisensory processes at a behavioural level. An audio-tactile reaction time task was administrated to a group of musicians and non-musicians. We found significantly faster reaction times with musicians for auditory, tactile, and audio-tactile stimulations. Statistical analyses between the combined uni- and multisensory reaction times revealed that musicians possess a statistical advantage when responding to multisensory stimuli compared to non-musicians. These results suggest for the first time that long-term musical training reduces simple non-musical auditory, tactile, and multisensory reaction times. Taken together with the previous results from other sensory modalities, these results strongly point towards musicians being better at integrating the inputs from various senses.
ISSN:0278-2626
1090-2147
DOI:10.1016/j.bandc.2016.12.001