There is an increasing interest in the idea that music training might improve non-musical abilities, that is, that have consequences that generalize beyond the trained skills, such as IQ or language (referred to as far-transfer). However, whether and how music training affects socio-emotional skills has been poorly explored. Moreover, transfer to domains closely related to music (referred to as near transfer) is often presumed to exist and has attracted less attention. We conducted a longitudinal study with 6- to 8-year-old children to examine possible near and far-transfer effects of music training, particularly on socio-emotional skills. The study included pre-test, training and pos-test phases, in three conditions: an experimental music training condition (Orff-based training, n = 37), an active control condition (basketball training, n = 40), and a passive control condition (no training, n = 33). The training programs were conducted over two school years (2019-2020, 2020-2021). Children were assessed before and after training regarding auditory and motor skills, as well as global cognition and executive functions. Moreover, emotion recognition in auditory (speech prosody, non-verbal vocalizations) and visual modalities (faces), and higher order socio-emotional abilities (empathy, emotion comprehension, and social functioning). We found evidence for near-transfer effects of music training on auditory discrimination and motor skills, as compared to the active and passive control groups. On the other hand, we found no significant effects of music training on any socio-emotional measure. These findings might inform debates on the use of music as an intervention tool in clinical and educational settings.

--