The music effect on motor skills of healthy people, a systematic review

Music has an undeniable effect on the quality and quantity of life. In some clinical trial studies, its effect on improving the motor skills of human subjects has been checked. Until now, there has been no systematic review of the effects of music on the motor skills of healthy non-musician, non-athlete people.

We searched the full text of English clinical trial research articles in medical PubMed, Web of Science, and Science Direct databases from 1 January 2000 to 30 June 2023 with sensitive relevant keywords. We excluded studies that were conducted on artists and athletes.

Based on the PRISMA flow diagram and after multistep screening, finally 26 records were reviewed. The art music type was only in one article and the popular music type was in 8 articles. In terms of the type of motor skill that was evaluated as a consequence of the use of music, the fine motor skills were evaluated in 4 articles and the gross motor skills were evaluated in 21 articles. The review showed that the number of fetal movements in three articles was significantly higher than that of the control group. In 20 studies, the effect of music on improving motor skills was positive, but in 2 studies, no statistically significant differences between groups due to the effects of music stimuli were found in outcomes. A reciprocal effect was also observed in a study, i.e generating action enhances auditory temporal sensitivity. Twenty studies had an overall low and unknown risk of bias. The most common types of bias were due to measurement of outcomes and the selection of the reported result.

The systematic review of 26 clinical trial studies about the effects of music on the motor skills of healthy non-musician, non-athlete people showed that except for 2 articles, music led to the improvement of motor skills. It is necessary to conduct further research with similar methods in terms of music type and motor skill types to conclude more accurate results.