Distributed Practice and Procedural Memory Consolidation in Musicians’ Skill Learning

Abstract

This research was designed to determine whether musicians’ learning is affected by the time intervals interposed between practice sessions. Twenty-nine non-pianist musicians learned a 9-note sequence on a piano keyboard in three practice sessions that were separated by 5 min, 6 hr, or 24 hr. Significant improvements in performance accuracy were observed in Session 2 only in the group whose sessions were separated by 24 hr. There were significant increases in performance speed in Session 2 in all three practice conditions, results which likely were attributable to the inclusion of all Session 1 data in the analysis. Additional significant speed increases were observed in Session 3 only in the groups whose sessions were separated by 6 and 24 hr. These results suggest that sleep-based procedural memory consolidation may enhance performance accuracy in music skill learning, whereas enhancements in performance speed may be attributable to both wake- and sleep-based consolidation processes.