How music affects memory, concentration and intelligence

How the brain of professional musicians differs from the brain of amateur musicians and what is wrong with the "Mozart effect" - in the chapter from the book "Music and the Brain"

Listening to music is not only pleasant, but also useful. Music has the ability to influence our emotions, so singing and even just listening to songs can make it easier to deal with mood disorders, depression, anxiety disorders, and other mental HEALTH issues. Many researchers believe that music can affect different parts of the brain and improve its individual functions due to neuroplasticity. Norwegian professors of neuroscience of music Are Brean and Geir Ulve Skeye talk about whether it really has an effect on memory, willpower and other cognitive abilities.

RBC Trends publishes a chapter from the book Music and the Brain. How music affects emotions, health and intelligence. The material was prepared in collaboration with the Alpina Publisher publishing house.

executive functions

Executive functions are processes in the brain that are responsible for cognitive control (that is, attention, concentration, the ability to resist temptation), working memory, and mental flexibility (the ability to quickly switch attention between different tasks). These abilities are controlled by the frontal lobes - thanks to them we are able to focus on ends and means and change behavior with the help of willpower, based on changes in the external environment.

Learning to play a musical instrument requires the development of precisely such qualities as focusing attention, working memory, the ability to switch attention between different tasks (reading notes, interacting with other musicians, solving complex technical problems), as well as endurance. Music education really has an effect on these qualities. For example, one study showed improvement in children's executive function as early as day 20 of class. Another study found that children who were exposed to music for 18 months had an increase in working memory when compared to a control group who had a general science program during the same period (Roden-led study, 2012). But then again, it is very difficult to distinguish the effect that the music has, from the overall effect,

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Intelligence and education

There is documented evidence that, on average, people who have studied music have higher levels of education and IQ. But what caused this connection? Can one common hidden factor (such as the socio-economic status of parents) explain both phenomena - or is there a direct relationship between intelligence and musicality, independent of other factors? There are still no answers to these questions.

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Canadian psychologist Professor E. Glenn Schellenberg has attempted to adjust for parental socioeconomic status in several studies. He found a positive correlation between music learning and IQ in children aged 6-11, as well as an association between childhood music learning, IQ and academic achievement in young people. There have been a number of long-term studies in which children were observed over time. These studies showed the same results. Apparently, learning music does have a positive effect on overall IQ levels, as well as on academic success. Most researchers believe that music education directly affects executive functions. There is a reasonable explanation for this: teaching music makes serious demands on the child and develops hand coordination, as well as the ability to concentrate on something for a long time, attention and working memory. This results in measurable changes in the child's body, such as an increase in the size of the corpus callosum, which improves communication between the hemispheres. In addition, it is likely that early music education gives the child the experience that intellectual work, which requires concentration, endurance and constant practice, brings joy and positive results. This experience increases the likelihood that the child will work harder at school and decide to devote more attention to learning in the future. probably, early music education gives the child the experience that intellectual work, requiring concentration, endurance and constant practice, brings joy and positive results. This experience increases the likelihood that the child will work harder at school and decide to devote more attention to learning in the future. probably, early music education gives the child the experience that intellectual work, requiring concentration, endurance and constant practice, brings joy and positive results. This experience increases the likelihood that the child will work harder at school and decide to devote more attention to learning in the future.

The effect of playing a musical instrument in childhood and adolescence lasts for a long time. Hanna-Pladdy and McKay's study included people aged 60 to 83. It turned out that those who played in an orchestra for more than 10 years in childhood and adolescence, on average, have a better memory, in addition, they also visually perceive space better than people who did not have such experience. Musicians do not lose their abilities. But it's never too late to start learning music - even if you didn't play it as a child. A study of people between the ages of 65 and 80 who only started learning to play the piano at that age found that after six months they had significantly improved working memory, motor skills, and tempo of perception. Their results were compared with the results of a group of those who were engaged in other activities (for example, exercise and drawing). In 2014, a group of Swedish scientists led by Balbag examined 157 age-related pairs of twins. It turned out that those who played a musical instrument all their lives were much less likely to develop dementia in old age than their siblings who had never played music.

Brain age can be determined using MRI. Scientists examined the MRI of the brains of patients stored in the database, deriving some average indicators characteristic of different ages. And then compared these indicators with the chronological age of the subjects. This is a bit like an age calculator: you need to enter your resting heart rate, height, weight, waist circumference, and so on, and you will get your biological age, which can be very different from chronological. In 2018, a team of researchers led by Rogenmoser compared the brains of professional musicians, amateur musicians, and those who had never played music. It turned out that, on average, the brains of the musicians were younger (that is, looked younger on MRI images) of the subject's real age. However, according to the results of the study, the dependence of the type of youthfulness of the brain on the number of music lessons was not revealed at all. It turned out that the brain of amateur musicians is the youngest. Professional musicians had younger brains, on average, but to a lesser extent. The results sparked a debate: maybe a professional musician is under so much stress that he reduces the positive effect of music lessons? And does the amateur musician benefit from other intellectual tasks that arise during the working day? Research has shown that a variety of activities is more beneficial than monotony for stimulating the brain. And this also applies to music. The results sparked a debate: maybe a professional musician is under so much stress that he reduces the positive effect of music lessons? And does the amateur musician benefit from other intellectual tasks that arise during the working day? Research has shown that a variety of activities is more beneficial than monotony for stimulating the brain. And this also applies to music. The results sparked a debate: maybe a professional musician is under so much stress that he reduces the positive effect of music lessons? And does the amateur musician benefit from other intellectual tasks that arise during the working day? Research has shown that a variety of activities is more beneficial than monotony for stimulating the brain. And this also applies to music.

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Mozart effect

In 1993, Frances Rauscher published the results of an experiment in the journal Nature. He is often cited as an example when it is said that music is theoretically capable of producing a distant transfer effect. One group of young people listened to Mozart's Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos (K. 448) for 10 minutes. The second group listened to relaxing music, while the third group sat in silence. The groups changed places, and each subject ended up in all three conditions. After each stage of the experiment, the subjects were instructed to mentally fold and cut a sheet of paper, and then imagine what shape the object would be if the sheet was folded again. Tasks of this kind test the ability to spatial perception and are included in all tests to test the level of intelligence. Rauscher discovered, that young people perform the task best after listening to Mozart - an increase in IQ was about 8 points. The results were immediately published in the media under headlines like "Mozart will make you smarter" - and now the phrase "Mozart effect" has become a term.

But let's take our time and think, is there anything strange in the very form of research? The chosen work of Mozart is able to cheer up and invigorate a person and, of course, is very different from relaxing music or complete silence (from which we become lethargic). In addition, such tasks are considered one of the most difficult in tests to determine the level of intelligence. A high level of concentration and intellectual effort is also required, and there is ample evidence of how much arousal and mood affect the ability to perform complex intellectual tasks. Positive emotions increase the amount of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex. According to a relatively new theory, it is this fact that explains why subjects perform many cognitive tasks much faster and more successfully in the presence of stimulation of mental activity. Perhaps the decisive factor in the question of how all groups coped with the task was precisely the level of arousal, as well as the ability to apply some kind of effort associated with it?

In the years that followed, countless researchers tried to test and challenge Frances Rauscher's results. In a 1999 experiment, Nantais and Schellenberg gave three groups IQ tasks after listening to the same piece by Mozart, a piano piece by Schubert, and an audio recording with the voice of an announcer. According to the results of this experiment, no difference was found in the results obtained from different groups. In addition, when the subjects were asked what they liked more - Mozart, Schubert, or the story told by the announcer, a surprising pattern was revealed. Those who liked Mozart did better on the task after listening to Mozart, and those who liked Schubert or the story told by the announcer, respectively, did better after listening to them.

Another trial was carried out by a research group led by Thompson (2001). The scientists chose Albinoni's Adagio, a slow and melancholy work, to work with. The subjects performed better after the Mozart sonata than after sitting in silence, and after Albinoni and silence, no difference was found in how well the task was performed. And as soon as the researchers began to monitor the level of arousal and mood of the subjects, the Mozart effect completely disappeared. Experiments were also carried out on children aged 10–12 years. They were more affected by popular tunes than by Mozart, but only for a short time. As a result, in all such studies, the effect of both Mozart and other music was very short-lived. No experiment has ever proven that music can have a lasting effect on the ability to solve intellectual problems.

In general, it is possible to refute the fact that music has a special influence on the human intellect. However, it is not surprising that all of these studies have highlighted the unusual ability of music to influence our emotions. But many of us need music precisely to cheer up or calm down, relax or have fun, rejoice or mourn. This is the magic of music - and perhaps this is the very Mozart effect.