The putative benefits of music training on non-musical abilities are a major topic of interest. These benefits have been particularly inspected for speech perception (Coffey et al., 2017a, b; Marques et al., 2007) and domain-general abilities, such as IQ (Schellenberg, 2004, 2011) and executive functions (Bugos & DeMarie, 2017; Moreno et al., 2011). Despite the fundamental link between music and socio- emotional processes, the potential impact of music training on these processes remains poorly explored. Here we synthesize the results from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies examining the relationship between music training and emotion recognition in voices and faces. Consistent enhancements have been reported in the ability to recognize emotions in vocal expressions, including prosody and nonverbal vocalizations (e.g., Correia et al., 2020; Lima & Castro, 2011; Thompson et al., 2004), but not in faces (Correia et al., 2020; Farmer et al., 2020; Weijkamp & Sadakata, 2016). Thus, it is likely that the advantage is restricted to the auditory modality, but any conclusion remains tentative as only a few studies have examined emotional stimuli other than voices (Correia et al., 2020; Farmer et al., 2020; Good et al., 2017; Weijkamp & Sadakata, 2016). Importantly, most available evidence is cross-sectional. Therefore, the causal direction of the effect also remains to be determined. The studies’ findings are discussed considering their design features. Future research will be useful to clarify the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying musician-related differences in emotion recognition, the potential role of predispositions, and possible implications to broader aspects of socio-emotional functioning. Such studies will deepen our knowledge on the relationship between music and socio-emotional processes and will also inform debates on music-based interventions in educational, community, and clinical settings.

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Music training,Emotion recognition,Socio-emotional processes,Transfer