It is still a matter of debate whether visual aids improve learning of music. In a multisession study, we investigated the neural signatures of novel music sequence learning with or without aids (auditory-only: AO, audiovisual: AV). During three training sessions on 3 separate days, participants (nonmusicians) reproduced (note by note on a keyboard) melodic sequences generated by an artificial musical grammar. The AV group (n = 20) had each note color-coded on screen, whereas the AO group (n = 20) had no color indication. We evaluated learning of the statistical regularities of the novel music grammar before and after training by presenting melodies ending on correct or incorrect notes and by asking participants to judge the correctness and surprisal of the final note, while EEG was recorded. We found that participants successfully learned the new grammar. Although the AV group, as compared to the AO group, reproduced longer sequences during training, there was no significant difference in learning between groups. At the neural level, after training, the AO group showed a larger N100 response to low-probability compared to high-probability notes, suggesting an increased neural sensitivity to statistical properties of the grammar; this effect was not observed in the AV group. Our findings indicate that visual aids might improve sequence reproduction while not necessarily promoting better learning, indicating a potential dissociation between sequence reproduction and learning. We suggest that the difficulty induced by auditory-only input during music training might enhance cognitive engagement, thereby improving neural sensitivity to the underlying statistical properties of the learned material.

视觉辅助是否能改善音乐学习仍然是一个有争议的问题。在一项多会话研究中，我们研究了有或没有辅助（仅听觉：AO，视听：AV）的新音乐序列学习的神经特征。在为期 3 天的三个培训课程中，参与者（非音乐家）再现（在键盘上逐个音符）由人工音乐语法生成的旋律序列。AV 组 ( n = 20) 的每个音符都在屏幕上进行了颜色编码，而 AO 组 ( n= 20) 没有颜色指示。我们通过呈现以正确或不正确音符结尾的旋律，并要求参与者判断最后一个音符的正确性和意外性，同时记录 EEG，从而评估训练前后对新音乐语法的统计规律的学习。我们发现参与者成功地学习了新语法。尽管与 AO 组相比，AV 组在训练期间再现了更长的序列，但组间的学习没有显着差异。在神经层面，训练后，与高概率笔记相比，AO 组对低概率笔记表现出更大的 N100 反应，表明神经对语法统计特性的敏感性增加；在 AV 组中没有观察到这种效果。我们的研究结果表明，视觉辅助可能会改善序列复制，但不一定能促进更好的学习，这表明序列复制和学习之间存在潜在的分离。我们建议在音乐训练期间仅听觉输入引起的困难可能会增强认知参与，从而提高对所学材料的潜在统计特性的神经敏感性。