Fluid and crystallized intelligence in the space of the music educational environment and successful musical training

Abstract

The problem of socio-cultural influence on intelligence development and subsequent vocational train-ing has not been widely studied within applied field of art. However, development of intelligence under the competing influences of general education and music specialization might affect music-academic success of vocational training. The current study was aimed to examine the relationship between music-academic success, fluid and crystallized intelligence, and musical engagement. The following hypotheses were tested on a sample of 67 music students with early music major experi-ence: 1)crystallized intelligence contributes less to music-academic success (scores) compared to fluid intelligence; 2)fluid intelligence mediates the relationship between music-academic success and crystallized intelligence; 3) fluid intelligence and musical engagement predict crystallized intelli-gence. Raven matrices were used to assess fluid intelligence, the Amthauer test scale for crystallized intelligence and the "active engagement" scale (Gold-MSI v. 1.0. technique). All three hypotheses were confirmed: 1) Crystallized intelligence contributed less to the success of music education than fluid intelligence; 2) The relationship between music-academic success and crystallized intelligence varied at different levels of fluid intelligence: inverse relationship was detected at low level of fluid intelligence, i.e. as crystallized intelligence values increased the performance got worse; positive cor-relation was observed at high level of fluid intelligence, i.e. with increasing values of crystallized intelligence performance improved; 3) Fluid intelligence interacted with engagement in shaping both general education experience and music-learning success. Thus, the success of musical learning was shown todepend primarily on the interaction of general cognitive resource and musical engagement rather than on prior general education experience. To conclude, the results of the study support the assumption of the influence of musical specialization on the factor structure of intelligence.