Switching task in Thai university students in music and non-music program

Abstract

Adolescence is considered a critical period due to the occurrence of many changes; physically, psychologically, and socially. According to United Nations Population Fund or UNFPA, there are 1.8 billion adolescents and youth nowadays, which is one quarter of the world’s population. Unfortunately, as reported by WHO, adolescents are faced with many risk factors including early pregnancy, HIV, violence, alcohol and drugs use, eating disorders, and tobacco use, as well as in Thailand. Nowadays, many researches have been done on the adolescent’s brain and found that their brains are not fully developed, and that the frontal lobe which is responsible for the executive function (working memory, planning, and inhibitory control and shifting) will be fully developed at the age of 25. Moreover, there are evidence that music can improve executive function both in adults and children. Therefore, this present study aims to fill the gap by studying the executive function, especially switching task, in university students who major in music comparing with those of no music training using Stroop Color-Word test. The test was administered to 40 healthy participants, of which 20 are music students and the others are students with no music training. The result shows that students with music training performed better on incongruent condition of the Stroop Color-Word Test.