Musicians tend to show higher memory capacity than nonmusicians in measures of working memory and recognition. Furthermore, results of some research have suggested that memory abilities differ across expertise in differing musical genres. However, fewer studies have investigated long-term memory (LTM) outcomes in musicians as compared to other types of memory. This study examined whether any differences existed between primarily jazz and classically trained musicians in a LTM task. During exposure, participants were presented with complete jazz, classical, and Hindustani melodies. They then completed an auditory imagery questionnaire and two music aptitude tests. During recognition, participants were presented with snippets drawn from the exposure melodies and were instructed to judge them as old or new. Results of the analysis suggested no main effect of music training, nor was there an interaction of music training with genre. There was a significant main effect of genre, with jazz melodies recognized more frequently than classical and Hindustani melodies. Results showed little music training advantage in the context of LTM when participants were divided into discrete groups based on their type of training. An expanded focus on working memory and LTM may be beneficial to the field in establishing nuanced details about the relationships between memory and musicianship.
Jimenez et al. (Thu,) studied this question.