As someone who has been (to varying degrees) a fledgling musician or nearly 50 years, I love running across posts like I have below… Some of these research results imply that there are more aspects to the nature of what human intelligence is, and some of the seemingly obscure or less important parts of cognition have real value, especially for us as we age.
Becoming a musician is obviously about performing and creating music, but an important subtext to these skills is that to be effective, you need to really exercise your ears. Some of the links below assert that these sorts of exercises, when taken over time, could help mitigate aspects of listening comprehension in the elderly, and to help mitigate the effects of cognitive hearing loss.
These results imply that exercising your ears in a disciplined manner, over time gives you some worthwhile tools, as well as (most likely) a far deeper understanding and appreciation of music.
I suspect that this is some pretty serious ammunition for parents to use when considering such topics as piano lessons or their children…
Musicians’ Brains Highly Developed
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110505083421.htm
New research shows that musicians’ brains are highly developed in a way that makes the musicians alert, interested in learning, disposed to see the whole picture, calm, and playful. The same traits have previously been found among world-class athletes, top-level managers, and individuals who practice transcendental meditation.
The new study was conducted by Fred Travis, Maharishi University of Management in the US, Harald Harung, Oslo University College in Norway, and Yvonne Lagrosen, University West in Sweden. They relate to high mind brain development, and it appears that this represents a basic potential to become really, really good at something.
The researchers measure mind brain development in several ways. EEGs reveal special patterns in the electrical activity of the brain in people with high mind brain development. They have well coordinated frontal lobes. Our frontal lobes are what we use for higher brain functions, such as planning and logical thinking. Another characteristic is that activity at a certain frequency, so-called alpha waves, dominates. Alpha waves occur when the brain puts together details into wholes. Yet another EEG measure shows that individuals with high mind brain development use their brain resources economically. They are alert and ready for action when it is functional to be so, but they are relaxed and adopt a wait and see attitude when that is functional.
Why Musicians Make Us Weep and Computers don’t
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080708200645.htm
Music can soothe the savage breast much better if played by musicians rather than clever computers, according to a new University of Sussex-led study.
Neuroscientists looked at the brain’s response to piano sonatas played either by a computer or a musician and found that, while the computerized music elicited an emotional response — particularly to unexpected chord changes – it was not as strong as listening to the same piece played by a professional pianist.
Senior research fellow in psychology Dr Stefan Koelsch, who carried out the study with colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, played excerpts from classical piano sonatas to twenty non-musicians and recorded electric brain responses and skin conductance responses (which vary with sweat production as a result of an emotional response).
Although the participants did not play instruments and considered themselves unmusical, their brains showed clear electric activity in response to musical changes (unexpected chords and changes in tonal key), which indicated that the brain was understanding the "musical grammar". This response was enhanced, however, when the sonatas were played by musicians rather than a computer.
Musical Experience Offsets Some Aging Effects: Older Musicians Excel in Memory and Hearing Speech in Noise Compared to Non-Musicians
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110511170931.htm
A growing body of research finds musical training gives students learning advantages in the classroom. Now a Northwestern University study finds musical training can benefit Grandma, too, by offsetting some of the deleterious effects of aging.
"Lifelong musical training appears to confer advantages in at least two important functions known to decline with age — memory and the ability to hear speech in noise," says Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory and co-author of the study in the May 11 issue of the online science journal PLoS ONE.
Co-written by Northwestern researchers Alexandra Parbery-Clark, Dana Strait, Samira Anderson, Emily Hittner and Kraus, "Musical Experience and the Aging Auditory System" finds that — when compared to their non-musician counterparts — musicians 45- to 65-years-old excel in auditory memory and the ability to hear speech in noisy environments.
"Difficulty hearing speech in noise is among the most common complaints of older adults, but age-related hearing loss only partially accounts for this impediment that can lead to social isolation and depression," says Kraus. "It’s well known that adults with virtually the same hearing profile can differ dramatically in their ability to hear speech in noise."
Playing Music as a Protection against Dementia
http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2011/05/13/playing-music-as-a-protection-against-dementia
In a recent post we saw that music may help people with dementia learn new facts. This article explores another relationship between music and dementia: playing a musical instrument, even as an amateur, may protect the brain later on against dementia-related damages Researchers had 70 people ages 60 to 83 perform a variety of tests to measure visuospatial memory, ability to name objects, the brain’s ability to adapt to new information […] those who had engaged in musical activity for 10 years or longer scored substantially better than those with no musical activity in their past.
The longer people play instruments, the more benefits they may derive.
All were amateurs who had started playing when they were 10 years old.
The relationship between cognitive skills and years of musical activity held up whether the musicians were currently involved in making music or not.
As the article points out this study shows an association between playing a musical instrument and cognitive skills, which doesn’t imply a causation effect. It is also not clear what in playing a musical instrument is good for the brain.
Musical experience enhances hearing in the aging brain
http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/2011/05/musical-experience-enhances-hearing-in.html
Parbery-Clark et al. perk me up a bit with this bit of work, suggesting that without my musical training, my increasing difficulty in hearing speech in noise might be worse!
Much of our daily communication occurs in the presence of background noise, compromising our ability to hear. While understanding speech in noise is a challenge for everyone, it becomes increasingly difficult as we age. Although aging is generally accompanied by hearing loss, this perceptual decline cannot fully account for the difficulties experienced by older adults for hearing in noise. Decreased cognitive skills concurrent with reduced perceptual acuity are thought to contribute to the difficulty older adults experience understanding speech in noise. Given that musical experience positively impacts speech perception in noise in young adults (ages 18–30), we asked whether musical experience benefits an older cohort of musicians (ages 45–65), potentially offsetting the age-related decline in speech-in-noise perceptual abilities and associated cognitive function (i.e., working memory). Consistent with performance in young adults, older musicians demonstrated enhanced speech-in-noise perception relative to nonmusicians along with greater auditory, but not visual, working memory capacity.
