Musical abilities predict the processing of prosodic focus cues in a second language: An eye-tracking study

Results showed that participants’ scores on a music perception test (Short-PROMS) predicted L2 prosodic focus processing, where participants with higher pitch perception scores anticipated the focus alternative, while participants with lower pitch scores did not. Scores on several subcomponents of the music perception test, but not pitch perception, were related to participants’ prior experience with playing a musical instrument.

Following hypotheses of transfer in overlapping neural networks for the processing of music and speech, we suggest that strengthened neural networks for music, possibly—but not conclusively—resulting from musical experience, may transfer to the domain of speech prosody, thereby facilitating second-language processing.