Thursday, March 22, 2007
Oh really?
Here's something I never did think about. Apparently someone thought this study was worth conducting:
Playing music makes you smart
Scientists have uncovered the first concrete evidence that playing music can significantly enhance the brain and sharpen hearing for all kinds of sounds, including speech.
"Experience with music appears to help with many other things in life, potentially transferring to activities like reading or picking up nuances in tones of voices or hearing sounds in a noisy classroom better," researcher Nina Kraus, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University, told LiveScience.
These new findings highlight the importance of music classes, she said.
"Music classes are often among the first to be cut when school budgets get tight," Kraus said. "That's a mistake."
Experiments started with 20 adult volunteers, who watched and listened to a movie of their choice. "'Men in Black,' 'The Incredibles,' 'Best in Show' were favorites," Kraus said.
As they watched movies, the volunteers also listened to Mandarin words that sounded like "mi" continuously at conversation level in the background. Mandarin is a tone language, where a single word can differ in meaning depending on its tone. For example, the Mandarin word "mi" means "to squint" when delivered in a level tone, "to bewilder" when spoken in a rising tone, and "rice" when given in a falling then rising tone.
The researchers recorded neural responses from the brains of volunteers during the experiments. Half the volunteers had at least six years of training in a musical instrument starting before the age of 12. The others had no more than three years of musical experience. All were native English speakers who had no knowledge of Mandarin.
"Even with their attention focused on the movie and though the sounds had no linguistic or musical meaning for them, we found our musically trained subjects were far better at tracking the three different tones than the non-musicians," said neuroscientist Patrick Wong at Northwestern University.
Wong emphasized these results were seen "in more or less everyday people. You don't have to be a top musician to find these kinds of effects."
Surprisingly, the researchers found these changes occurred in the brainstem, the ancient part of the brain responsible for controlling automatic, critical body functions such as breathing and heartbeat.
Music was thought largely to be the province of the cerebral cortex, where higher brain functions such as reasoning, thought and language are seated. The brainstem was thought to be unchangeable and uninvolved in the complex processes linked with music.
"These results show us how malleable to experience the brainstem actually is," Kraus said of the findings detailed in the April issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience. "We think music engages higher level functions in the cortex that actually tune the brainstem."
Much remains open for investigation. "How much musical training would you need for this to be helpful?" Kraus wondered. "Would music help children with literacy problems? How old would you have to be to see these effects?"
I'll leave you with that and your personal opinions about me.
Playing music makes you smart
Scientists have uncovered the first concrete evidence that playing music can significantly enhance the brain and sharpen hearing for all kinds of sounds, including speech.
"Experience with music appears to help with many other things in life, potentially transferring to activities like reading or picking up nuances in tones of voices or hearing sounds in a noisy classroom better," researcher Nina Kraus, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University, told LiveScience.
These new findings highlight the importance of music classes, she said.
"Music classes are often among the first to be cut when school budgets get tight," Kraus said. "That's a mistake."
Experiments started with 20 adult volunteers, who watched and listened to a movie of their choice. "'Men in Black,' 'The Incredibles,' 'Best in Show' were favorites," Kraus said.
As they watched movies, the volunteers also listened to Mandarin words that sounded like "mi" continuously at conversation level in the background. Mandarin is a tone language, where a single word can differ in meaning depending on its tone. For example, the Mandarin word "mi" means "to squint" when delivered in a level tone, "to bewilder" when spoken in a rising tone, and "rice" when given in a falling then rising tone.
The researchers recorded neural responses from the brains of volunteers during the experiments. Half the volunteers had at least six years of training in a musical instrument starting before the age of 12. The others had no more than three years of musical experience. All were native English speakers who had no knowledge of Mandarin.
"Even with their attention focused on the movie and though the sounds had no linguistic or musical meaning for them, we found our musically trained subjects were far better at tracking the three different tones than the non-musicians," said neuroscientist Patrick Wong at Northwestern University.
Wong emphasized these results were seen "in more or less everyday people. You don't have to be a top musician to find these kinds of effects."
Surprisingly, the researchers found these changes occurred in the brainstem, the ancient part of the brain responsible for controlling automatic, critical body functions such as breathing and heartbeat.
Music was thought largely to be the province of the cerebral cortex, where higher brain functions such as reasoning, thought and language are seated. The brainstem was thought to be unchangeable and uninvolved in the complex processes linked with music.
"These results show us how malleable to experience the brainstem actually is," Kraus said of the findings detailed in the April issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience. "We think music engages higher level functions in the cortex that actually tune the brainstem."
Much remains open for investigation. "How much musical training would you need for this to be helpful?" Kraus wondered. "Would music help children with literacy problems? How old would you have to be to see these effects?"
I'll leave you with that and your personal opinions about me.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Techno Blues
Hello folks,
The first month of the year with no public holidays is nearly halfway through, hope you guys are all still hanging in there.
The IT show just came and went and those of you who bought MP3 players, don’t forget to put some blues in them. For those with new HDTV sets, it’s time for some blues DVD sessions. As for the new PS3 owners….don’t forget to bathe and eat.
However, it is heartening to know that in this age of technological advancement in personal entertainment there’s still a place for live blues, and it’s happening at The Old Brown Shoe this month on the 24th. Even though the technology exists for a live performance to be broadcast to your home, it’s still impossible to transmit the smell of BBQ and the taste of beer through a broadband connection.
So there you have it, a good excuse to come on down and get your blues, booze and BBQ’ed calories first hand.
The first month of the year with no public holidays is nearly halfway through, hope you guys are all still hanging in there.
The IT show just came and went and those of you who bought MP3 players, don’t forget to put some blues in them. For those with new HDTV sets, it’s time for some blues DVD sessions. As for the new PS3 owners….don’t forget to bathe and eat.
However, it is heartening to know that in this age of technological advancement in personal entertainment there’s still a place for live blues, and it’s happening at The Old Brown Shoe this month on the 24th. Even though the technology exists for a live performance to be broadcast to your home, it’s still impossible to transmit the smell of BBQ and the taste of beer through a broadband connection.
So there you have it, a good excuse to come on down and get your blues, booze and BBQ’ed calories first hand.
Start Me Up
I stepped out into the blinding sunlight, squinting as my eyes readjusted from the yellow fluorescent lights that coloured the interior of the manufacturing plant.
As I walked past the storage yard and delivery bays, I left behind me the insistent rumble of machines running with the torque of a thousand horses; the banshee-like squeal of sintered tungsten carbide plowing through hardened steel at a faster rate than it should; the high-pitched whirring of diamond grinding wheels not unlike that of a dentist’s drill accompanied by a shower of sparks; the acrid smell of gaseous byproducts from bacteria feasting on vegetable-oil derived machining coolants; the ringing of a hammer being mercilessly brought to bear upon wrought metal.
My trusty dustcoat, once a proud hue of navy blue but now spotted with oil and grease stains and other non-descript patches, lay draped over my chair for the last time bereft of the pens, steel rule, safety glasses, ear plugs and assortments of scribbled paper that were regular occupants of its pockets.
Those were sounds, sights and smells that I had become accustomed to over the months and strangely, that working environment held more appeal for me than a sanitised cubicle in a Shenton Way office. But when the time came for a choice to be made, pen was put to paper and the deal was done.
After 15 minutes as the lone occupant of a dilapidated busstop in the middle of industrial heartland, the bus finally pulled up and I got on. As I put on my earphones, a familiar guitar riff brought forth a song that struck home loud and clear.
“Big wheels keep on turning
Carry me home to see my kin
Singin’ songs about the South land
I miss Alabama once again and I think it’s a sin”
Those words were sung in 1974 about a distant land of which I knew little, but the intent behind them resonated with mine.
I know where I want to go and I’m heading there.
As I walked past the storage yard and delivery bays, I left behind me the insistent rumble of machines running with the torque of a thousand horses; the banshee-like squeal of sintered tungsten carbide plowing through hardened steel at a faster rate than it should; the high-pitched whirring of diamond grinding wheels not unlike that of a dentist’s drill accompanied by a shower of sparks; the acrid smell of gaseous byproducts from bacteria feasting on vegetable-oil derived machining coolants; the ringing of a hammer being mercilessly brought to bear upon wrought metal.
My trusty dustcoat, once a proud hue of navy blue but now spotted with oil and grease stains and other non-descript patches, lay draped over my chair for the last time bereft of the pens, steel rule, safety glasses, ear plugs and assortments of scribbled paper that were regular occupants of its pockets.
Those were sounds, sights and smells that I had become accustomed to over the months and strangely, that working environment held more appeal for me than a sanitised cubicle in a Shenton Way office. But when the time came for a choice to be made, pen was put to paper and the deal was done.
After 15 minutes as the lone occupant of a dilapidated busstop in the middle of industrial heartland, the bus finally pulled up and I got on. As I put on my earphones, a familiar guitar riff brought forth a song that struck home loud and clear.
“Big wheels keep on turning
Carry me home to see my kin
Singin’ songs about the South land
I miss Alabama once again and I think it’s a sin”
Those words were sung in 1974 about a distant land of which I knew little, but the intent behind them resonated with mine.
I know where I want to go and I’m heading there.
