Playing music can be good for your brain / Stanford study finds it helps the understanding of language

Stanford University research has found for the first time that musical training improves how the brain processes the spoken word, a finding that researchers say could lead to improving the reading ability of children who have dyslexia and other reading problems.

The study, made public Wednesday, is the first to show that musical experience can help the brain improve its ability to distinguish between rapidly changing sounds that are key to understanding and using language.
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The researchers then examined how musicians and non-musicians processed similar word syllables, like “da” and “ba.” A person has only a 40,000th of a second to differentiate between the two sounds when the physical signal hits the ear, and the musicians made those rapid auditory distinctions more accurately and quickly than non-musicians did.
When the two sounds were clearly different, like “da” and “wa,” the two groups performed similarly, the differences emerging only in the finer distinctions.

“The musicians are better able to detect small differences than the non-musicians, which is surprising,” said Nadine Gaab, a postdoctoral associate who moved from Stanford to MIT with Gabrieli. “Non-musicians have the same experience with syllables as musicians.”

Vaguely interesting, but obvious in retrospect. This needs more study to be truly interesting. Of course, when someone is trained to hear things, they are going to hear better.

Personally, I’d like some sort of slider to let me more easily control the mix between multiple auditory inputs. When experiencing a movie with a soundtrack I really love (or would really love to play, like Jackie Brown) I have a hard time focusing on the foreground. Because I pay so much attention to the music I lose the thread of the plot. This happens in more pedestrian activities like shopping or driving too, which is why I tend to listen to shitty music in heavy traffic. If it has a good beat but the rest of the music is something I could never imagine playing, I can stay focused.