Musical training improves planning and robustness of sequence learning

Abstract

Musicians demonstrate advantages in acquiring motor sequences, showing faster learning and better explicit sequence knowledge than non-musicians. However, it is unclear whether this advantage extends beyond acquisition to the consolidation phase, which is when newly learned skills stabilize and become resistant to interference. Additionally, while interference from executing competing motor tasks is well-established, less is known about whether purely sensory information presented after learning can disrupt consolidation of a bimodal motor sequence. We investigated how post-acquisition sensory interference affects performance of a learned audio-visual sequence, and whether musical training moderates this vulnerability. Participants first learned an explicit sequence in a serial reaction time task using synchronous, informative audio-visual cues. After a brief consolidation period, they were randomly assigned to one of four observational conditions that manipulated the relationship between auditory and visual streams. Motor performance was then reassessed. Post-acquisition sensory interference impaired subsequent motor performance, but this effect was modality-specific: it was driven primarily by manipulations to the task-relevant visual stream, while auditory interference alone had no credible effect. Distributional analysis revealed that learning involved a strategic shift from reactive to anticipatory responding. Critically, participants with musical training showed an earlier and consistently higher reliance on anticipatory responses than those without, demonstrating a more rapid adoption of predictive motor control. These findings demonstrate that newly formed sensorimotor memories are selectively vulnerable to interference in task-relevant modalities. Furthermore, our work provides a candidate mechanistic account for the musician advantage in sequence learning, linking it to faster development of predictive motor strategies during consolidation.