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The purpose of this study, grounded in near-transfer theory, was to investigate relationships among music sight-reading and tonal and rhythmic audiation, visual field articulation, spatial orientation and visualization, and achievement in math concepts and reading comprehension. A regression analysis with data from four high schools (N = 98) in the American Midwest yielded a 4–variable model that included reading comprehension, rhythmic audiation, visual field articulation, and spatial orientation, F = 21.26, p < 0.001, accounting for 48% of the variance on music sight-reading. The results support previous studies in music education, cognitive science, and neuroscience that have shown that music reading draws on a variety of cognitive skills that include reading comprehension, audiation, spatial-temporal reasoning and visual perception of patterns rather than individual notes.
Joyce Eastlund Gromko (2004) studied this question.