Nonmusicians With High Music Perception: A Distinct Category in Visuospatial and Surgical Skill Assessment

Musicians tend to outperform nonmusicians in spatial tasks and surgical skills, but an unexplored group is nonmusicians with high music perception - musical sleepers.

In this cross-sectional study of 150 female right-handed first-year medical students, after segregating musicians (M), we identified musical sleepers (S) as nonmusicians who scored more than the sample median in the Mini Profile of Music Perception (MiniPROMS). The rest were classified as nonmusicians with low music perception (N). The performance of the mental rotation (MR) task (n = 150) and surgery knotting task (SP) (n = 49) was evaluated. A correlation analysis was conducted between MR and MP scores (n = 150), and a partial correlation analysis was done for MP and SP (n = 56) while controlling for MR.

M (p < 0.001) and S (p = 0.021) outperformed N in the MRT, but no significant difference existed between S and M. In the SP, there was no difference between S and N. Lastly, MP and MR showed a weak correlation, and after controlling for MR, MP modestly correlated with SP scores (r = 0.268, p = 0.048).

Musical sleepers demonstrate better spatial task performance than nonmusicians, although no clear benefit was seen in surgical tasks. Future research is needed to determine if these advantages extend to surgical performance.