Blog Post 2
Listening in a Crowd: How Musical Training Aids Older Adults
Listening in a Crowd: How Musical Training Aids Older Adults
Musical training may help aid the elderly in
separating distinct sounds. A new study built on prior research findings that
showed neural changes in musicians. The new study looked at how musical
training influences age-related changes in auditory processes. The researchers
used two groups of elderly adults (a group of musicians and a group of
non-musicians) and two groups of younger adults (a group of musicians and a group
of non-musicians). They recorded and used event-related potentials to measure
how the brain responds to concurrent sounds. All groups listened to computer
generated buzzers made up of multiple harmonics. If the frequencies of all the
harmonics were mathematically related, such as the harmonic produced by a
single piano note, participants heard a single buzz-like sound. If one of the
harmonics was mistuned, participants heard the mistuned harmonic as a distinct
sound similar to a tuning fork, in addition to the buzz-like sound.
Results showed that musicians (both older and
younger) were more likely to hear two distinct sounds when the second harmonic
was mistuned by 2% or more. Researchers also observed a brain wave called an
object-related negativity (ORN) in association with the perception of two
distinct sounds. The brains of the younger musicians automatically detected the
presence of the mistuned harmonic better than any other group, with the ORN the
largest and occurring the earliest compared to the other groups. The older
musicians relied on a second, non-reflexive neural process to detect the second
sound at the same level as the younger musicians. Scientist Claude Alain
explains, “We think of it as that musical training does not affect hearing in
the ear level but rather how older individuals listen to sounds in the brain”,
making them better listeners. As a result, researchers say musical training can
make you a better listener not just for musical sounds but also for other types
of sounds or in other situations like a cocktail party.
Article found at:
For the published study see:
Zendel, Benjamin Rich and Alain, Claude. “The Influence
of Lifelong Musicianship on Neurophysiological Measures of Concurrent Sound
Segregation.” Journal of
Cognitive Neuroscience (2012). Web. 19 Nov. 2012.
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