Real life motor training modifies spatial performance: The advantage of being drummers.

We compared the performance of skilled drummers to that of non-drummers and non-musicians in the Simon and spatial stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) tasks to investigate whether and to what extent spatial performance can be modified by motor behaviors acquired in real life. Drummers were chosen because, compared to other musicians and to the general population, their efficient performance mainly depends on the processing of spatial information. While the Simon effect was equivalent for the three groups, the spatial SRC effect was less pronounced in drummers. The advantage was present even when feet were used as responding effectors, suggesting a central locus of the effect. These results suggest that spatial S-R translations are influenced by real life motor training, with drummers’ training speeding-up the intentional S-R translations when stimulus and response locations are on opposite sides.