Prior to starting the
IQ Brain Clock blog, over at the mother blog (
IQ's Corner), I made a number of posts re: the relations between musical abilities/training and various cognitive abilities (click
here,
here,
here, and
here). As my reading has expanded and evolved, I'm now beginning to see a closer link between these findings and the
mental or interval time-keeping research. Thus, I now make this post at the IQ Brain Clock blog.
As noted by
Dr. Lewis (2005), the brain's processing of time most likely contributes to our ability to "decode temporally complex auditory signals in the form of speech or
music" (italics added by blogmaster). In addition, Dr. Lewis's research has
led her to conclude that "Time measurement is fundamental to almost everything we do:
music and speech, for instance, are just time-coded variations in sound...."
(italics added by blogmaster). My
prior post re: the
1997 Annual Review of Psychology is particularly relevant here as that literature review described a number of different theoretical conceptions of
mental time-keeping that may underlie musical performance, conceptions that are very similar to the cognitive/neuroscience-based models that have been hypothesized to explain the positive treatment effect of
synchronized metronome tapping (in a variety of domains).
It is within this context that I was excited to read the following article which reinforces the potential importance of music instruction on cognitive abilities and, more importantly, IMHO sets the record straight on the infamous and popular "Mozart effect."
- Rauscher, F. Hinton, S. (2006). The Mozart Effect: Music Listening is Not Music Instruction. Educational Psychologist, 41 (4), 233-238. (click here to view)
Abstract- “The Mozart effect” originally referred to the phenomenon of a brief enhancement of spatial- temporal abilities in college students after listening to a Mozart piano sonata (K. 448).Over time, this term was conflated with an independent series of studies on the effects of music instruction. This occurrence has caused confusion that has been perpetuated in scholarly articles, such as the one by Waterhouse (2006) and that persists in the minds of the general public. Here this article emphasizes the distinction that must be made between research on music listening and research on the more cognitively complex and educationally significant phenomena of music instruction. This article stresses that improvements in spatial-temporal skills associated with music instruction are not “free.” This article also discusses theories of transfer and mechanisms of learning as they relate to this topic.
The bottom line (from this excellent review article) is that the effects of music instruction on cognitive abilities (possibly due, I submit, to the hypothesis that musical training has a positive effect on the brain-based mental/interval brain clock) should not be confused with the popular,
and largely not empirically supported,
Mozart effect.As noted in the Rauscher review. "Schellenberg (2003) suggests that “positive transfer effects to nonmusical domains, such as language, mathematics, or spatial reasoning could be similarly unique for individuals who take music lessons” (p. 444) and further states that:
- …the ability to attend to rapidly changing temporal information, skills relevant to auditory stream segregation, the ability to detect temporal groups, sensitivity to signals of closure and other gestalt cues of form, emotional sensitivity and fine motor skills … should be particularly likely to transfer to a variety of nonmusical domains. (p. 444)"
What am I trying to say? When I start connecting the research and theoretical dots I start to conclude that there is likely a connection between the positive treatment effects of synchronized metronome tapping interventions, the musical training/cognitive ability increase research literature and, contemporary mental/interval time-keeping empirical and theoretical research. And, this should NOT be confused with the so-called
Mozart effect.
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I've stumbled across two additional brain fitness web sites. CogniFit and Vigorous Minds. I've added each to the blogroll. I've not yet had time to examine the sites/products in detail yet. If anyone has any experience with these companies or products, please help the blog readers by posting a "comment."
Interesting post over on the Eide Neurolearning blog that suggests that the hot (and hard to find) Nintendo Wii video game may be good for learning and the brain.
As posted previously, my initial interest in mental/interval time-keeping surfaced when I was asked to serve as an external evaluation consultant to an educational application of a synchronized metronome tapping intervention (Interactive Metronome; IM) to improve school achievement.
It has become clear to me over the past few years that the "tipping point" for the brain fitness revolution has been reached. [Readers of this blog should pay attention to the direct blog post feed from Sharp Brains that is provided on the right-hand column of this blog.]
