Music lessons, pitch processing, and g

Musically trained and untrained participants were administered tests of pitch processing and general intelligence (g). Trained participants exhibited superior performance on tests of pitch-processing speed and relative pitch. They were also better at frequency discrimination with tones at 400 Hz but not with very high tones (4000 Hz). The two groups also performed similarly on a measure of g. The findings suggest that music training is associated positively with various aspects of pitch processing for tones in the typical pitch range for music. They also imply that general associations between music lessons and nonmusical cognitive functioning stem from individual differences in psychological mechanisms distinct from g.