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<\/p>Hello Leigh VanHandel, I\u2019m Leilany [ ], a student in high school and for my college English course, we were assigned to write a synthesis essay on a researchable topic and ask an interviewee to answer a few questions. The topic I chose was based on How Playing Music Affects the Developing Brain and its effects on learning and concentration. Could you please answer the questions below it would really help with my essay?
1. From all the research that has been made and reviewed do you think music does indeed have a great effect on a child\u2019s developing mind?
2. From what you\u2019ve seen would it make you want to introduce a child of your own to music in hopes of giving them a boost in their learning skills?
3. Would you personally want to learn an instrument because of the benefits found in many research studies?
4. Do you think offering more musical classes in schools would improve the students learning abilities like improving test scores and graduation rates?
5. Do you think musical activities and learning to play instruments be offered to elders in hopes of similar brain activity and changes that happen in children?
Thank you for your time,
Leilany<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I finally got a moment to answer your questions, and my responses are below. My guess is that these weren\u2019t the responses you were expecting, but if you ask a scientist questions, you\u2019re going to get the best answer that the current science can provide, even if the answer isn\u2019t what you want to hear!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From all the research that has been made and reviewed do you think music does indeed have a great effect on a child\u2019s developing mind?<\/strong>\u00a0
I think there\u2019s no question that music has an effect on the mind, whether it\u2019s of a child or an adult. The critical part of the question is whether the effect is systematic and consistent; does it affect all people similarly, or are its effects stronger in some people than in others (and the followup question that is\u00a0why,<\/em>\u00a0and what makes the effects stronger in some people?).\u00a0
The other part of the question is, what are the effects? Engaging in music is going to increase\u00a0musical<\/em>\u00a0knowledge and ability, for sure, but I think the question you\u2019re asking is whether engaging with music creates what\u2019s called a \u201cfar transfer\u201d to other, nonmusical cognitive abilities\/processes\/skills.\u00a0
\u201cNear transfer\u201d is when a skill you\u2019ve learned transfers easily to something that\u2019s very related. Imagine if you practice throwing a beanbag into a hoop on the ground in front of you and you get really good at it; if you then use a slightly different beanbag or move the hoop a little further away from you, it\u2019s a slightly different task but the things you\u2019ve learned in practicing the first skill will definitely help with the second. Now imagine you\u2019ve gotten so good at that skill that you try throwing a basketball at a basketball hoop that\u2019s ten feet off the ground. That\u2019s a much different skill and the things you learned in the first skill probably won\u2019t help all that much. If the first skill DID help with the very different skill, though, that would be called \u201cfar transfer.\u201d So engaging in music is likely to help with musical knowledge and understanding (because that\u2019s near transfer), but does it help with things like reading or math (far transfer)?\u00a0
This was the problem with things like the \u201cMozart Effect\u201d studies \u2013 researchers played music for students, and then tested them on things like spatial tasks or math tasks, and claimed they found an effect where if they played Mozart, people performed better on the spatial or math tasks. This led to a popular misconception that listening to music made you smarter, and a whole industry sprung up of recordings of \u201cmusic for babies\u201d or \u201cstudy music\u201d that was supposed to make you smarter just by listening to it. It\u2019s a great story, and it\u2019s one that a lot of people wanted to believe in \u2013 wouldn\u2019t it be nice if we could just listen to music and make ourselves smarter? \u2013 but it\u2019s not really true. The effect was incredibly inconsistent, and researchers only found that effect if they tested people immediately after listening to the music; if they tested them even a short time later, there was no effect or benefit from listening to the music. What was likely happening is that there was a temporary stimulating effect from listening to the music, which led people to perform slightly better on the unrelated task when they were tested immediately after listening.\u00a0
There\u2019s been a lot of research on whether engaging with music (including playing it) has a far transfer effect, and the results are quite mixed; some studies claim they have found a strong positive result, and others claim they have found no evidence that music engagement results in far transfer. There\u2019s a lot of potential confounds (things that might affect the results), in studies like this \u2013 you have to consider general intelligence measures, socio-economic status (instruments and music lessons cost money!), and personality factors. Young children who are able to engage with music probably come from a higher socio-economic background, which means they also may have access to a wider variety of other learning opportunities and materials than someone from a less fortunate socio-economic background. Saying that music was the thing that caused additional intellectual development ignores all of the other factors that the high socio-economic child may have had access to \u2013 better schools, more books, more leisure time to read, more educationally oriented toys, more access to sports, more access to tutors, etc.\u00a0
In general, the most current research shows that music\u00a0does<\/em>\u00a0have an effect on the brain, but that effect most likely does not engage in far transfer to other cognitive skills. That\u2019s not the story we want to hear, but that\u2019s what the current research shows.\u00a0\u00a0
2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From what you\u2019ve seen would it make you want to introduce a child of your own to music in hopes of giving them a boost in their learning skills?<\/strong>\u00a0
I would want to introduce a child to music in order to give them the opportunity to see if they enjoy it and if they\u2019re good at it \u2013 but I would want to do that with a wide variety of experiences\u00a0 for my child! And I wouldn\u2019t make them do music if they weren\u2019t interested in it; even if there\u00a0were<\/em>\u00a0documented brain benefits to music, if you force someone to do something they don\u2019t want to do, and they\u2019re not enjoying it, they probably aren\u2019t going to gain much benefit from it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Would you personally want to learn an instrument because of the benefits found in many research studies?<\/strong>\u00a0
This is a bit of an unfair question \u2013 I already know how to play several instruments, so if I was to learn another instrument it would be because I wanted to learn that instrument, not because of any perceived brain benefits (which, as above, probably don\u2019t exist). Hypothetically, if I didn\u2019t play an instrument and I knew the results of the studies, it wouldn\u2019t move me to start playing an instrument because the science tells me it doesn\u2019t help. But if I wanted to play an instrument, I would start whether or not I thought I would get general cognitive benefits, because I would get\u00a0musical<\/em>\u00a0benefits from learning it, and I would also get the enjoyment of learning to play the instrument and making music in general.\u00a0\u00a0
4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Do you think offering more musical classes in schools would improve the students learning abilities like improving test scores and graduation rates?\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0
Consider a school that has the capability of offering many music classes and has students who are interested and able to take the classes; that school is probably better funded than other schools, which means the school population is probably of a higher socio-economic status (since school funding tends to come from taxes collected from those who live around the school). It\u2019s true that schools that serve higher socio-economic status students tend to have higher test scores and graduation rates than schools that serve lower socio-economic students \u2013 \u00a0but is that because they have music programs, or is that because the higher socio-economic students have more academic support throughout their lifetime, more access to educational resources in general, are less likely to have to work to support their families, and so on? Again, it\u2019s really hard to say that music classes affect test scores and graduation rates when there\u2019s so many other factors tied up into those things.\u00a0\u00a0
There may be a correlation between schools that offer music courses and schools that have high test scores or graduation rates, but there\u2019s no way you can say that the music classes\u00a0cause<\/em>\u00a0those things. There\u2019s a famous line in psychology, \u201ccorrelation does not imply causation\u201d \u2013 in other words, just because two things are related in some way doesn\u2019t mean one causes the other. For example, say you notice that sales of ice cream are increasing, and sales of sunglasses are also increasing. Is one of those causing the other, or is it that both are increasing because of a third factor \u2013 sunny, hot weather? Schools that offer music classes may very well have higher test scores and higher graduation rates, but there are so many other reasons that may be.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Do you think musical activities and learning to play instruments be offered to elders in hopes of similar brain activity and changes that happen in children?<\/strong>
As with children, there\u2019s evidence that musical activities and learning to play instruments provides a benefit to some older folks, but there isn\u2019t any evidence that it helps or reverses the effects of aging. Again, it would be so wonderful if it did, since the effects of aging are so challenging for both those who are aging and their loved ones. I think that older folks should absolutely be given the opportunity to engage in music and learn to play instruments if it\u2019s something that appeals to them and that they enjoy, and they may enjoy short-term but I\u2019m skeptical that doing so would lead to any long-term cognitive benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall, saying that music is important because it makes us smarter is problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it diminishes the importance of music for its own sake! If our society thinks the most important thing about music is whether it makes us better at math, that says a lot about what we value, and I\u2019d argue that it\u2019s important to value music for what it does<\/em> do \u2013 it gives us pleasure; it evokes feelings and memories, both happy and sad; and it makes us feel more connected to people, especially if we\u2019re playing music with others.
I\u2019m guessing these weren\u2019t the responses you were expecting, but that\u2019s where the science is right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hello Leigh VanHandel, I\u2019m Leilany [ ], a student in high school and for my college English course, we were assigned to write a synthesis essay on a researchable topic and ask an interviewee to answer a few questions. The topic I chose was based on How Playing Music Affects the Developing Brain and its effects on learning and concentration. Could you please answer the questions below it would really help with my essay? 1. From all the research that has been made and reviewed do you think music does indeed have a…read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77815,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-dr-van","et-no-image","et-bg-layout-dark","et-white-bg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77815"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":432,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions\/432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drvan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}