Why Mozart? Information Processing Abilities of Gifted Young Musicians

Abstract

An information processing model based on the neuropsychology of Alexander Luria was employed to investigate individual differences among normal and musically gifted children in their perception of pitch sequences with various degrees of structural coherence. The Luria model has three orthogonal dimensions of information processing: successive and simultaneous synthesis for encoding information, and executive synthesis which involves attention. It was hypothesised that music perception involves the cooperative interaction of these three information processing dimensions. Children with demonstrated musical precocity were compared with normal children on the three Luria model dimensions and on their perception of musical structure. The results highlighted the importance of metacognitive processes for realising extreme musical talent.