Exploring the intersections of numerical and music cognition

AbstractAre there cognitive connections between humans’ ability to make music, and their understanding of math and numbers? This question has motivated both centuries of speculation across the fields of philosophy and education and an increasing number of empirical studies of the topic. We review some of the most promising work at the intersection of numerical and music cognition, and establish its relevance both to the applied sphere (e.g., education) and to core theoretical issues in the cognitive sciences. Next, we identify some notable limitations within the literature, and attempt to explain some of the likely causes of these limitations. Finally, we propose specific themes of future focus (spatialization and the mapping between symbolic and nonsymbolic representations) for understanding whether there is shared cognitive architecture for reasoning about number and math.