A man plays the saxophone in New York's Central Park October 12, 2007.Learning to play a musical instrument can change your brain, with a US review finding music training can lead to improved speech and foreign language skills.
Learning to play a musical instrument can change your brain, with a US review finding music training can lead to improved speech and foreign language skills.
Although it has been suggested in the past that listening to Mozart or other classical music could make you smarter, there has been little evidence to show that music boosts brain power.
But a data-driven review by Northwestern University has pulled together research that links musical training to learning that spills over into skills including language, speech, memory, attention and even vocal emotion.
Researcher Nina Kraus said the data strongly suggested that the neural connections made during musical training also primed the brain for other aspects of human communication.
"The effect of music training suggests that, akin to physical exercise and its impact on body fitness, music is a resource that tones the brain for auditory fitness and thus requires society to re-examine the role of music in shaping individual development," the researchers said in their study.
Kraus said learning musical sounds could enhance the brain's ability to adapt and change and also enable the nervous system to provide a scaffolding of patterns that are important to learning.
The study, published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, looked at the explosion of research in recent years focused on the effects of music training on the nervous system which could have strong implications for education.
The study found that playing an instrument primes the brain to choose what is relevant in a complex process that may involve reading or remembering a score, timing issues and coordination with other musicians.
"A musician's brain selectively enhances information-bearing elements in sound," Kraus said in a statement. "In a beautiful interrelationship between sensory and cognitive processes, the nervous system makes associations between complex sounds and what they mean."
The study reviewed literature showing, for example, that musicians are more successful than non-musicians in learning to incorporate sound patterns for a new language into words.
美国一项研究发现，学习乐器能够使大脑发生变化，音乐训练能够提高演讲和外语水平。
尽管过去有人认为听莫扎特或其他古典音乐可以让人变得更聪明，但是并没有足够的证据证明音乐能提高智力。
如今，美国西北大学的一项研究以数据为支持，对探讨音乐训练对语言、演讲、记忆力、注意力甚至情感抒发等能力的影响的相关研究进行了分析。
研究人员妮娜•克劳斯说，这些数据充分表明，音乐训练过程中所产生的神经元连接能增强大脑在人际交流其它方面的能力。
研究人员在研究报告中说：“音乐训练所产生的这种影响表明，与体育锻炼对身体健康的影响一样，音乐能够增强大脑活力，使听觉更加敏锐。所以我们的社会有必要重视音乐在个人发展中所起的作用。”
克劳斯说，学习声乐能够提高大脑的应变能力，也可以让神经系统建立起一个有利于学习的结构。
这一在《神经系统科学自然评论》上发表的研究对近几年来该领域新增的大量研究进行了回顾和分析，这些研究主要关注的是音乐训练对神经系统的影响及其可能会对教育产生的重要影响。
研究发现，演奏乐器能增强大脑在复杂的过程中分辨有价值信息的能力，这一复杂的过程可能包括看谱、记谱，计时或与其他乐师配合等。
克劳斯在一项声明中说：“一个音乐家的大脑能够有选择性地分辨出声音中含有信息的元素。在感觉和认知过程的相互作用下，神经系统能把复杂的声音和它们所表达的意思联系起来。”
研究人员对以往的研究资料进行分析后发现，懂音乐的人将一种新的语言的发音拼写成单词的能力强于未接受过音乐训练的人。
spill over into sth.: 发展成（Her sympathy for him spilled over into love. 她对他的同情发展成为爱情。）
vocal: 用语言表达的
prime: to make something ready for use or action 把（事物）准备好
akin to: 类似于
scaffolding: 骨架，框架
explosion: a large, sudden or rapid increase in the amount or number of something（突增；猛增；激增）
relevant: having ideas that are valuable and useful to people in their lives and work（有价值的；有意义的）