Comparison of gap in noise test results in musicians and non-musician controls

Main feature of auditory processing abilities is temporal processing including temporal resolution, temporal ordering, temporal integration and temporal masking. Many studies have shown the superiority of musicians in temporal discrimination over non-musicians. In this study we compared temporal processing in musicians and non-musician controls via Gap in Noise (GIN) test. This cohort study was conducted on 24 musicians with mean age of 25.3 years and 24 normal hearing non-musician controls with mean age of 24.5 years, in Faculty of Rehabilitation of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. GIN test results (approximate threshold and percent of corrected answers) obtained and analyzed by Mann-Whitney non-parametric statistical test. There was significant difference between approximate threshold and percent of corrected answers between musicians and non-musician group (p<0.001), while no sex difference was observed between both groups (p>0.05). the lower approximate threshold and the more corrected answers in GIN test by musician group indicate rapid auditory temporal processing ability of this group rather than non-musicians group. This might be related to effects of musical training on central auditory processing.