Lyrics in Muisc: The Impact of Musical Training

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to identify whether relationships exist between musical training and the ability to 1) recognize sung speech from background music and 2) recognize sung speech presented in a degraded format (cochlear implant simulations). This study evaluated whether musical training impacted performances of two target groups (musicians and non-musicians) when listening to sentences sung in two conditions; first, cochlear implant simulation representing how music sounds when the device is first activated and second, the original recording where background music was louder than the singer. The study included two stages. In the first stage, 10 participants were presented with speech sung in background music first followed by 5-channel cochlear implant simulations after. In the second stage, the remaining 20 participants received cochlear implant simulations first and speech sung in background music second, removing the suspected potential for priming. I hypothesized musicians would show a significantly higher recognition level than non-musicians in both conditions. Results showed non-musicians demonstrated a higher recognition of speech in background music and cochlear implant simulations than musicians, though the difference was not significant. Additionally, results showed there was a significant difference between averages scores of participants who were presented cochlear implant simulations first, as compared to those who were presented simulations second. The findings showed that participants who received simulations second recognized speech significantly better than those who received them first. There was no significant difference between average scores from participants who received speech sung in music first or second; with those who received original recordings second perceiving speech better than those who received them first.