Abstract:  Musical training has an impact on a wide range of cognitive activities, but its underlying mechanism is still unclear. Recently, researchers have claimed that the broad impact of musical training may be mediated by executive functions (EFs). In this study, we divide EFs into three core components: inhibitory control, working memory and cognitive flexibility, and elaborate the influence of musical training on these three components as well as the mediation role of EFs on transfer effects of musical training. The results showed that musical training has a different effect on different core components of EFs. Moreover, changes in the structure and function of prefrontal lobe play a significant role in the effect of musical training on EFs. In addition, there are still inconsistent results regarding the mediating effects of executive functions on the transfer effect of musical training. Future researches should focus on this issue by multiple technologies.

Key words: musical training, executive functions, inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility