Enhanced recognition of vocal emotions in individuals with naturally good musical abilities

Abstract

Music training is widely assumed to enhance several nonmusical abilities, including speech perception, executive functions, reading, and emotion recognition. This assumption is based primarily on cross-sectional comparisons between musicians and nonmusicians. It remains unclear, however, whether training itself is necessary to explain the musician advantages, or whether factors such as innate predispositions and informal musical experience could produce similar effects. Here, we sought to clarify this issue by examining the association between music perception abilities and vocal emotion recognition. The sample (N = 169) comprised musically trained and untrained listeners who varied widely in their musical skills, as assessed through self-report and performance-based measures. The emotion recognition tasks required listeners to categorize emotions in nonverbal vocalizations (e.g., laughter, crying) and in speech prosody. Music training was associated positively with emotion recognition across tasks, but the effect was small. We also found a positive association between music perception abilities and emotion recognition in the entire sample, even with music training held constant. In fact, untrained participants with good musical abilities were as good as highly trained musicians at recognizing vocal emotions. Moreover, the association of music training with emotion recognition was fully mediated by auditory and music perception skills. Thus, in the absence of formal music training, individuals who were ‘naturally’ musical showed musician-like performance at recognizing vocal emotions. These findings highlight an important role for predispositions and informal musical experience in associations between musical and nonmusical domains.