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Sex Differences in Music: A Female Advantage at Recognizing Familiar Melodies

Overview of attention for article published in Frontiers in Psychology, March 2016
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (90th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (84th percentile)

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1 blog
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18 X users
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1 Facebook page
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1 Google+ user

Citations

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25 Dimensions

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71 Mendeley
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Title
Sex Differences in Music: A Female Advantage at Recognizing Familiar Melodies
Published in
Frontiers in Psychology, March 2016
DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00278
Pubmed ID
Authors

Scott A. Miles, Robbin A. Miranda, Michael T. Ullman

Abstract

Although sex differences have been observed in various cognitive domains, there has been little work examining sex differences in the cognition of music. We tested the prediction that women would be better than men at recognizing familiar melodies, since memories of specific melodies are likely to be learned (at least in part) by declarative memory, which shows female advantages. Participants were 24 men and 24 women, with half musicians and half non-musicians in each group. The two groups were matched on age, education, and various measures of musical training. Participants were presented with well-known and novel melodies, and were asked to indicate their recognition of familiar melodies as rapidly as possible. The women were significantly faster than the men in responding, with a large effect size. The female advantage held across musicians and non-musicians, and across melodies with and without commonly associated lyrics, as evidenced by an absence of interactions between sex and these factors. Additionally, the results did not seem to be explained by sex differences in response biases, or in basic motor processes as tested in a control task. Though caution is warranted given that this is the first study to examine sex differences in familiar melody recognition, the results are consistent with the hypothesis motivating our prediction, namely that declarative memory underlies knowledge about music (particularly about familiar melodies), and that the female advantage at declarative memory may thus lead to female advantages in music cognition (particularly at familiar melody recognition). Additionally, the findings argue against the view that female advantages at tasks involving verbal (or verbalizable) material are due solely to a sex difference specific to the verbal domain. Further, the results may help explain previously reported cognitive commonalities between music and language: since declarative memory also underlies language, such commonalities may be partly due to a common dependence on this memory system. More generally, because declarative memory is well studied at many levels, evidence that music cognition depends on this system may lead to a powerful research program generating a wide range of novel predictions for the neurocognition of music, potentially advancing the field.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 18 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 71 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Luxembourg 1 1%
Unknown 70 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 15 21%
Researcher 11 15%
Student > Master 8 11%
Student > Bachelor 7 10%
Unspecified 3 4%
Other 9 13%
Unknown 18 25%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 18 25%
Arts and Humanities 5 7%
Medicine and Dentistry 5 7%
Neuroscience 4 6%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 3 4%
Other 14 20%
Unknown 22 31%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 20. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 27 November 2018.
All research outputs
#1,852,414
of 25,503,365 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Psychology
#3,788
of 34,577 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#29,453
of 312,826 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Psychology
#70
of 458 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,503,365 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 92nd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 34,577 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.3. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 312,826 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 458 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 84% of its contemporaries.