Active maintenance of musical and linguistic information as a function of musical experience.

Recent research suggests that linguistic and musical information are processed by shared working memory resources in non-musicians. However, it is still unclear how musical information is actively maintained by those with extensive musical experience. Some evidence suggests that those with musical experience may utilize distinct processing systems for the active maintenance of linguistic and musical information.

Shared Processing of Language and Music.

The present study sought to explore whether musical information is processed by the phonological loop component of the working memory model of immediate memory. Original instantiations of this model primarily focused on the processing of linguistic information. However, the model was less clear about how acoustic information lacking phonological qualities is actively processed.