Listening to music is not only enjoyable, but also beneficial. Music can affect our emotions, so singing and even just listening to compositions can make it easier to combat mood disorders, depression, anxiety disorders and other mental health problems. Many researchers believe that music can affect different parts of the brain and, through neuroplasticity, improve certain brain functions. Let’s see if it really has an effect on memory, willpower, and other cognitive abilities.

Executive Functions

Executive functions are processes in the brain that are responsible for cognitive control (that is, attention, concentration, and the ability to resist temptation), working memory, and mental flexibility (the ability to quickly switch attention between different tasks). These capacities are controlled by the frontal lobes, which provide us with the ability to focus on goals and means and change behavior through willpower in response to changes in the external environment.

Learning to play a musical instrument requires the development of such qualities as focus, working memory, the ability to switch attention between different tasks (reading notes, interacting with other musicians, solving complex technical problems), and endurance. Music education does have an effect on these qualities. For example, one study demonstrated an improvement in children’s executive functions as early as day 20 of lessons. Another study showed that the working memory capacity of children who studied music for 18 months increased when compared with data from a control group where subjects were taught a general science curriculum during the same period. But again, it’s very difficult to distinguish between the effect that music specifically has and the overall effect that comes from systematic practice. Follow this link welcome.bestbuy.accountonline.com to activate Best Buy online account.

Intelligence and Education

There is documented evidence that, on average, people who have studied music have higher levels of education and IQ. But what causes this connection? Can one common underlying factor (e.g., parental socioeconomic status) explain both phenomena-or is there a direct link between intelligence and musicality that is independent of other factors? The answers to these questions remain elusive.

The effects of playing a musical instrument in childhood and adolescence persist for a long time. Musicians don’t lose their abilities. But it’s never too late to start learning music – even if you didn’t do it as a child. A study of people between the ages of 65 and 80 who just started learning to play the piano at that age found that after six months, their working memory, motor skills and pacing had significantly improved. Their results were compared with those of the group who did other activities (such as physical exercise and drawing). much lower than those of their siblings who had never practiced music.

The age of the brain can be determined by MRI scans. Researchers examined MRIs of patients’ brains stored in a database, deriving some kind of averages specific to different ages. And then they compared those numbers to the chronological age of the subjects. It’s a bit like an age calculator: you have to enter your resting heart rate, height, weight, waist volume, and so on, and you get your biological age, which can be very different from your chronological age. It turned out that it was the brains of amateur musicians that were the youngest. Professional musicians had younger brains on average – but to a lesser extent. The results sparked a discussion: could it be that a professional musician is under so much stress that it reduces the positive effect of practicing music? And does an amateur musician benefit from having other intellectual tasks that arise during the workday? Research has shown that variety of activities is better for stimulating brain function than monotony. And this also applies to music.

The Mozart Effect

In 1993, Frances Rauscher published the results of an experiment in Nature. It is often cited as an example when it is said that music is theoretically capable of producing a long-range transference 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 swapped places, and each subject ended up in all three versions of the conditions. After each stage of the experiment, subjects were given the task of mentally folding and cutting up a sheet of paper, and then imagining what shape the object would be if they folded the sheet again. Tasks of this kind test spatial perceptual abilities and are included in all intelligence tests. Rauscher found that young people performed best after listening to Mozart, with an IQ increase of about 8 points. The results were immediately published in the media with headlines like “Mozart will make you smarter” and the phrase “Mozart effect” has become a term.

But let’s take our time and consider whether there is anything strange about the form of the study itself. The chosen piece of Mozart can cheer up and invigorate a person and, of course, is quite different from the relaxing music or complete silence (it makes us lethargic). In addition, such tasks are considered some of the most difficult in tests to determine the level of intelligence. A high level of concentration and intellectual effort is also necessary, and there is plenty of evidence to show how much the level of 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, this very fact explains why many cognitive tasks are performed much faster and more successfully by subjects in the presence of mental stimulation. Could it be that it was the level of arousal, and the associated ability to exert some kind of effort, that was the decisive factor in how all groups would cope with the task?

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 Mozart piece, a Schubert piano piece, and an audio recording of the narrator’s voice. Based on the results of this experiment, no difference was found in the results obtained from the different groups. In addition, when the subjects were asked which they liked better, Mozart, Schubert, or the story told by the narrator, a surprising pattern was revealed. Those who liked Mozart did better after listening to Mozart, and those who liked Schubert or the story told by the narrator, respectively, did better after listening to them.

In general it is possible to refute the fact that there is a special effect of music on human intelligence. Not surprisingly, however, all of these studies have emphasized the unusual ability of music to affect our emotions. And after all, many of us need music just to cheer up or calm down, relax or be cheerful, happy or sad. This is the magic of music – and perhaps this is the Mozart effect.