The magic of music is endless. It not only brings inspiration, but also heals people's hearts.
Many parents attach great importance to their children's musical enlightenment, hoping to cultivate their children's artistic sentiments and hone their children's perseverance and resilience.
So how to scientifically help children choose musical instruments? What benefits can learning a musical instrument bring to the brain? Can listening without practicing achieve the same effect?
A new study published in Nature Scientific Reports by researchers at the University of Bath shows that learning to play the piano has a positive impact on the brain's visual and sound processing capabilities and can also help improve depression.
In this randomized controlled study, 31 adults with no previous music learning training experience were divided into an instrument training group, a music listening group, and a writing homework group.
Members of the musical instrument training group were asked to take 1 hour of piano lessons per week for 11 weeks. While the intervention group practiced their instruments, members of the other two groups listened to music and did homework respectively.
The results found that in just a few weeks after taking musical instrument lessons, intervention group member 's ability to process multi-sensory information (i.e., sight and sound) was enhanced.
We often need to use multi-sensory abilities in our daily lives. Driving, crossing the road, finding targets in the crowd, watching TV, etc. are all inseparable from the perception and processing of multi-dimensional sensory information.
In this study, the improvement in the multi-sensory abilities of the intervention group members was not limited to the field of music. With music training, participants' audiovisual processing in other tasks became more accurate.
When participants were asked to determine whether sound and visual "events" occurred at the same time, whether it was a simple test to judge flashes and beeps, or a complex test to judge visual impact and human voice, those participants who had taken piano lessons performed better, showing significant improvement in identifying audio-visual changes in the environment.
This kind of fine-tuning of individual cognitive abilities did not appear in the music listening group (the music listened to was the same as the intervention group played) nor in the writing group.
In addition, research results show that playing the piano not only helps exercise the brain's processing power, but also improves cognitive abilities . Moreover, participants' depression, anxiety, and stress scores also decreased after training compared with before training.
That said, music training may also have mental health benefits, and researchers are currently conducting further studies to verify this.
Learning to play an instrument such as the piano is a complex task - the performer not only needs to read the music and generate the corresponding gestures , but also monitor auditory and tactile feedback and then adjust the subsequent fingering and movements .
In scientific terms, this process combines visual and auditory cues and guides the individual's multi-sensory training.
This research tells us, Even in adulthood when brain plasticity declines, learning a musical instrument has an important and positive impact on the way the brain processes audio-visual information. So for children, the role of musical instruments cannot be underestimated.
Therefore, if you want to help your children develop their brains happily and improve their cognitive abilities, why not try to learn a favorite musical instrument with your children!
Reference:
https://neurosciencenews.com/piano-audio-visual-stress-21994
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