Recruiting

Music Listening

Sponsor:

Northeastern University

Code:

NCT07772765

Conditions

Music Listening

Auditory Processing

Attention

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 60 - 70+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Interventions

Music Listening with Attentional prompts

Music Listening

Tone listening with Attentional prompts

Study Details

Brief summary:

The proposed study will enroll healthy older adult participants to examine the effectiveness of music listening activities to promote hearing and cognition. Participants will be randomized into one of four experimental groups and can expect to participate for up to 21 hours of research distributed over 20 weeks.

Conditions

Music Listening

Auditory Processing

Attention

Study ID

NCT07772765

Start date

Aug 14, 2026

Status verified date

Aug, 2026

Completion date

Aug 31, 2027

Anticipated

Primary completion date

May 31, 2027

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 60 - 70+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Age: 60+
  • No self-reported auditory difficulties and normal or near-normal hearing sensitivity as measured by SRTs.
  • Should have no more than typical hearing loss for their age and no evidence of dementia.
  • Fluent in English and/or Spanish
  • No more than two years of formal music training in childhood OR in the past 20 years

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Abnormal vision or hearing prohibitive of training
  • History of seizures, focal brain lesion, or head injury with loss of consciousness
  • Physical handicap (motor or perceptual) that would impede training procedures
  • Social, educational or economic hardship prohibitive to training schedule Concurrent enrollment in other cognitive training studies
  • History of major psychiatric illness, including psychosis, bipolar disorder, depression, alcohol or substance abuse, recent bereavement
  • Geriatric Depression Scale-15 (GDS-15) score of 6 or higher, indicating clinically significant depressive symptoms
  • Not being proficient enough in English or Spanish that would prevent following and understanding all instructions and completing all testing sessions
  • Diagnosis of dementia or other neurological disease, including mild cognitive impairment (MCI)
  • Telephone-Montreal Cognitive Assessment (t-MoCA) score of 16 or less

Study Design

Enrollment

216 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Basic Science

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Sound of Music Plus Attention

experimental: Sound of Music

experimental: Sound of Tones Plus Attention

no intervention: Business as usual Control

Interventions

Music Listening with Attentional prompts

Participants will listen to musical excerpts, and guided instructions will be provided to tell the participants what aspect of the music to pay attention to and how to respond. Participants will log responses on an interactive tablet-based interface.

Music Listening

Participants will listen to musical excerpts and will be provided with guided instructions directing their attention to specific aspects of the music. Participants will report when they perceive a noticeable change in the music (e.g., changes in instrumentation, rhythm, texture, or intensity). Participants will log responses on an interactive tablet-based interface.

Tone listening with Attentional prompts

Participants will be asked to attend to auditory stimuli and respond to them according to guided instructions. Participants will log responses on an interactive tablet-based interface.

Primary outcome measure

  • Digits-in-Noise Task [ Time Frame: Pre-test (week 1), Mid-test (week 5), Post-test (week 10), Follow-up (week 18) ]
  • Spatial Release From Masking Task [ Time Frame: Pre-test (week 1), Mid-test (week 5), Post-test (week 10), Follow-up (week 18) ]
  • Dichotic Sentence Identification Task [ Time Frame: Pre-test (week 1), Mid-test (week 5), Post-test (week 10), Follow-up (week 18) ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Audrey Carrillo, MA

‬626-482-8091a.carrillo@northeastern.edu

Locations

Northeastern University

Recruiting

Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02115

Contacts

Audrey Carrillo, MA

626-482-8091a.carrillo@northeastern.edu

More Information

Sponsor

Northeastern University

Last update posted

Aug 19, 2026

Last verified

Aug, 2026

Keywords

  • Cognitive Training
  • Auditory Training
  • Music
  • Aging

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Northeastern University on 2026-08-19.