Musical brains easily pick out speech from background noise
November 14th, 2009 - 12:06 pm ICT by ANILondon, Nov 14 (ANI): Fail to keep track of conversations at noisy parties? Well, learn playing an instrument to enhance your ability to pick up emotional cues in conversation, says a new study.
Nina Kraus and colleagues at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, has found differences in brain activity that they say make musicians better at picking out speech from background noise.
The researchers found that musicians are better at repeating a sentence heard in the presence of background noise.
They then asked 16 lifelong musicians and 15 non-musicians to listen to speech in a quiet or noisy environment while they were wearing scalp electrodes to monitor their brain activity.
Background noise delayed the brain’s response, but this delay was much shorter in musicians.
Besides, in the noisy environment, the musicians’ brainwaves were more similar to the sound waves of the speech than in non-musicians.
The difference could be partly genetic, but Kraus says training is likely to help.
“Musicians spend a lot of time extracting particular sounds from a soundscape,” New Scientist quoted her as saying.
This means that musical training could provide real benefits to children with autism or language difficulties, who tend to find understanding speech in a noisy environment particularly difficult, and for other children too, says Kraus.
“Music education is not just about teaching your child how to play the flute, it’s about teaching your child to function better in our noisy auditory environment,” she said.
The study was published in The Journal of Neuroscience. (ANI)
- How music training boosts learning - Jul 21, 2010
- Music lessons may boost a person's ability to hear in noise - Aug 18, 2009
- Music helps kids process speech more accurately - Feb 23, 2010
- Study finds hearing impact of 'turning up the volume in a noisy place' - Mar 10, 2011
- Why dyslexic kids face difficulties in distinguishing speech from noise - Nov 12, 2009
- How noise affects nervous system's ability to transcribe sounds key to reading skills - Jul 14, 2009
- Music 'boosts kids' brain development' - Feb 21, 2010
- Bat brain offers clues into human hearing - Nov 15, 2010
- Childhood music lessons keep ageing brains sharper - Apr 21, 2011
- Brain wiring lets us differentiate our speech from that of others' - Dec 10, 2010
- Musicians'' ''well-tuned'' brains can identify emotion - Mar 04, 2009
- Now, paralysed people can play music just by thinking about it! - Mar 19, 2011
- How are we able to talk even in a noisy room - Nov 26, 2009
- Men better at watching, hearing - Jul 01, 2011
- How does the brain perceive fragmented sound? - Nov 26, 2009
Tags: activity background, auditory environment, background noise, brain activity, brains, children with autism, conversations, emotional cues, evanston illinois, how to play the flute, kraus, language difficulties, music education, musicians, new scientist, noisy environment, noisy parties, northwestern university, scalp electrodes, sound waves