Supporting Information

Tierney et al. 10.1073/pnas.1505114112

Subcortical Recording Stimulus
The stimulus for the brainstem recording was a 40-ms synthesized
“da,” which is a five-formant Klatt-synthesized syllable (20-kHz
sampling rate). The first 10 ms correspond to the sound’s onset
and are composed of a short burst of broadband energy. The
consonant-vowel transition lasts from 10 to 40 ms; although there
is no steady-state period of the stimulus, it nonetheless is heard by
listeners as “da.” During the formant transition, the fundamental
frequency (F0) ramps from 103 to 125 Hz, the first formant (F1)
increases from 220 to 720 Hz, the second formant (F2) declines
from 1,700 to 1,240 Hz, and the third formant (F3) declines from
2,580 to 2,500 Hz. The fourth and fifth formants are constant at
3,500 and 4500 Hz, respectively.
Cortical Recording Stimulus
The stimulus for the cortical recording was a 170-ms speech sound
“da,” which is a six-formant Klatt-synthesized syllable (20-kHz
sampling rate). The first 5 ms correspond to the sound’s onset
and are composed of a short burst of broadband energy. The
consonant-vowel formant transition lasts from 5 to 50 ms. During
the formant transition, the fundamental frequency (F0) remains
at 100 Hz, the first formant (F1) increases from 400 to 720 Hz,
the second formant (F2) declines from 1,700 to 1,240 Hz, and
the third formant (F3) declines from 2,580 Hz to 2,500 Hz. The
steady-state vowel occurs from 50 to 170 ms and F1–F3 are
steady at 720, 1,240, and 2,500 Hz over this region. From 5 to
170 ms, the fourth, fifth, and sixth formants are constant at 3,330,
3,750, and 4,900 Hz, respectively.
Behavioral Tests
Phonological awareness, phonological memory, and rapid naming
abilities were measured with the Comprehensive Test of Pho-
nological Processing (CTOPP) (99). Phonological Awareness is a
composite score made up of the elision subtest, in which par-
ticipants are asked to create a new word by dropping a syllable or
phoneme from a spoken word, and the blending words subtest, in
which participants blend spoken syllables to create a new word.
The phonological memory composite score consists of the digit
repetition and nonword repetition subtests, in which the partic-
ipants repeat back a list of digits or increasingly longer English-
based nonwords presented via speaker as accurately as they can.
The rapid naming composite score is composed of rapid letter
naming and rapid number naming, two subtests in which the
participants read aloud a list of letters or digits as quickly and
accurately as they can. These three composite measures are age-
normed standard scores.

Table S1. Demographic information at pretest for the music and

JROTC training groups, listed as mean (standard deviation)
Demographic information Music training JROTC training

No. female 8 8
Age at pretest 14.66 (0.42) 14.72 (0.38)
Nonverbal IQ scores at pretest 51.74 (9.88) 51.14 (4.75)
Avg degree of maternal education* 2.53 (0.84) 2.4 (0.75)

*1, less than high school; 2, high school; 3, college; 4, graduate training.

Table S2. Mean (standard deviation) of all measures in years 1

and 4 for the music and JROTC training groups
Measure Year 1 Year 4

Music training
Response consistency (z-score) 1.154 (0.402) 1.152 (0.394)
N1 minus P1 (microvolts) 0.010 (1.307) 0.754 (1.568)
Phonological awareness 98.0 (8.6) 105.2 (10.2)
Phonological memory 95.4 (11.9) 96.2 (11.9)
Rapid naming 97.2 (11.0) 95.5 (10.3)
JROTC training
Response consistency (z-score) 1.260 (0.449) 0.984 (0.331)
N1 minus P1 (microvolts) 0.261 (1.526) −0.033 (1.081)
Phonological awareness 99.9 (9.5) 102.6 (9.0)
Phonological memory 96.9 (11.0) 94.6 (11.2)
Rapid naming 95.6 (11.2) 92.8 (10.9)

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