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rowanlim
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 Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 6:04 am Post subject: Music & Intelligence |
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I thought this would be an interesting topic, below are related articles 
| Quote: | Music Thought To Enhance Intelligence, Mental Health And Immune System
A recent volume of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences takes a closer look at how music evolved and how we respond to it. Contributors to the volume believe that animals such as birds, dolphins and whales make sounds analogous to music out of a desire to imitate each other.
This ability to learn and imitate sounds is a trait necessary to acquire language and scientists feel that many of the sounds animals make may be precursors to human music.
Another study in the volume looks at whether music training can make individuals smarter. Scientists found more grey matter in the auditory cortex of the right hemisphere in musicians compared to nonmusicians. They feel these differences are probably not genetic, but instead due to use and practice.
Listening to classical music, particularly Mozart, has recently been thought to enhance performance on cognitive tests. Contributors to this volume take a closer look at this assertion and their findings indicate that listening to any music that is personally enjoyable has positive effects on cognition. In addition, the use of music to enhance memory is explored and research suggests that musical recitation enhances the coding of information by activating neural networks in a more united and thus more optimal fashion.
Other studies in this volume look at music's positive effects on health and immunity, how music is processed in the brain, the interplay between language and music, and the relationship between our emotions and music. |
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| Quote: | Music and the Brain
Music's interconnection with society can be seen throughout history. Every known culture on the earth has music. Music seems to be one of the basic actions of humans. However, early music was not handed down from generation to generation or recorded. Hence, there is no official record of "prehistoric" music. Even so, there is evidence of prehistoric music from the findings of flutes carved from bones.
The influence of music on society can be clearly seen from modern history. Music helped Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence. When he could not figure out the right wording for a certain part, he would play his violin to help him. The music helped him get the words from his brain onto the paper.
Albert Einstein is recognized as one of the smartest men who has ever lived. A little known fact about Einstein is that when he was young he did extremely poor in school. His grade school teachers told his parents to take him out of school because he was "too stupid to learn" and it would be a waste of resources for the school to invest time and energy in his education. The school suggested that his parents get Albert an easy, manual labor job as soon as they could. His mother did not think that Albert was "stupid". Instead of following the school's advice, Albert's parents bought him a violin. Albert became good at the violin. Music was the key that helped Albert Einstein become one of the smartest men who has ever lived. Einstein himself says that the reason he was so smart is because he played the violin. He loved the music of Mozart and Bach the most. A friend of Einstein, G.J. Withrow, said that the way Einstein figured out his problems and equations was by improvising on the violin.
Bodily Responses to Music
In general, responses to music are able to be observed. It has been proven that music influences humans both in good and bad ways. These effects are instant and long lasting. Music is thought to link all of the emotional, spiritual, and physical elements of the universe. Music can also be used to change a person's mood, and has been found to cause like physical responses in many people simultaneously. Music also has the ability to strengthen or weaken emotions from a particular event such as a funeral.
People perceive and respond to music in different ways. The level of musicianship of the performer and the listener as well as the manner in which a piece is performed affects the "experience" of music. An experienced and accomplished musician might hear and feel a piece of music in a totally different way than a non-musician or beginner. This is why two accounts of the same piece of music can contradict themselves.
Rhythm is also an important aspect of music to study when looking at responses to music. There are two responses to rhythm. These responses are hard to separate because they are related, and one of these responses cannot exist without the other. These responses are (1) the actual hearing of the rhythm and (2) the physical response to the rhythm. Rhythm organizes physical movements and is very much related to the human body. For example, the body contains rhythms in the heartbeat, while walking, during breathing, etc. Another example of how rhythm orders movement is an autistic boy who could not tie his shoes. He learned how on the second try when the task of tying his shoes was put to a song. The rhythm helped organize his physical movements in time.
It cannot be proven that two people can feel the exact same thing from hearing a piece of music. For example, early missionaries to Africa thought that the nationals had bad rhythm. The missionaries said that when the nationals played on their drums it sounded like they were not beating in time. However, it was later discovered that the nationals were beating out complex polyrhythmic beats such as 2 against 3, 3 against 4, and 2 against 3 and 5, etc. These beats were too advanced for the missionaries to follow.
Responses to music are easy to be detected in the human body. Classical music from the baroque period causes the heart beat and pulse rate to relax to the beat of the music. As the body becomes relaxed and alert, the mind is able to concentrate more easily. Furthermore, baroque music decreases blood pressure and enhances the ability to learn. Music affects the amplitude and frequency of brain waves, which can be measured by an electro-encephalogram. Music also affects breathing rate and electrical resistance of the skin. It has been observed to cause the pupils to dilate, increase blood pressure, and increase the heart rate.
The Power of Music on Memory and Learning
The power of music to affect memory is quite intriguing. Mozart's music and baroque music, with a 60 beats per minute beat pattern, activate the left and right brain. The simultaneous left and right brain action maximizes learning and retention of information. The information being studied activates the left brain while the music activates the right brain. Also, activities which engage both sides of the brain at the same time, such as playing an instrument or singing, causes the brain to be more capable of processing information.
According to The Center for New Discoveries in Learning, learning potential can be increased a minimum of five times by using this 60 beats per minute music. For example, the ancient Greeks sang their dramas because they understood how music could help them remember more easily ). A renowned Bulgarian psychologist, Dr. George Lozanov, designed a way to teach foreign languages in a fraction of the normal learning time. Using his system, students could learn up to one half of the vocabulary and phrases for the whole school term (which amounts to almost 1,000 words or phrases) in one day. Along with this, the average retention rate of his students was 92%. Dr. Lozanov's system involved using certain classical music pieces from the baroque period which have around a 60 beats per minute pattern. He has proven that foreign languages can be learned with 85-100% efficiency in only thirty days by using these baroque pieces. His students had a recall accuracy rate of almost 100% even after not reviewing the material for four years.
In 1982, researchers from the University of North Texas performed a three-way test on postgraduate students to see if music could help in memorizing vocabulary words. The students were divided into three groups. Each group was given three tests - a pretest, a posttest, and a test a week after the first two tests. All of the tests were identical. Group 1 was read the words with Handel's Water Music in the background. They were also asked to imagine the words. Group 2 was read the same words also with Handel's Water Music in the background. Group 2 was not asked to imagine the words. Group 3 was only read the words, was not given any background music, and was also not asked to imagine the words. The results from the first two tests showed that groups 1 and 2 had much better scores than group 3. The results from the third test, a week later, showed that group 1 performed much better than groups 2 or 3. However, simply using music while learning does not absolutely guarantee recall but can possibly improve it. Background music in itself is not a part of the learning process, but it does enter into memory along with the information learned. Recall is better when the same music used for learning is used during recall. Also, tempo appears to be a key of music's effect on memory.
One simple way students can improve test scores is by listening to certain types of music such as Mozart's Sonata for Two Piano's in D Major before taking a test. This type of music releases neurons in the brain which help the body to relax. The effectiveness of Mozart's sonatas can be seen by the results from an IQ test performed on three groups of college students. The first group listened to a Mozart sonata before taking the test. The second group listened to a relaxation tape before their test. The third group did not listen to anything before the test. The first group had the highest score with an average of 119. The second group ended up with an average of 111, and the third group had the lowest score with an average of 110.
William Balach, Kelly Bowman, and Lauri Mohler, all from Pennsylvania State University, studied the effects of music genre and tempo on memory retention. They had four groups learn vocabulary words using one of four instrumental pieces - slow classical, slow jazz, fast classical, and fast jazz. Each of the four groups was divided into smaller groups for the recall test. These sub groups used either the same (i.e. slow classical, slow classical) or different (i.e. slow jazz, fast classical) pieces when taking the recall test. The results did show a dependency on the music. Recall was better when the music was the same during learning and testing. These same researchers did another test which restricted the changes in the music to just tempo (i.e. slow to fast jazz) or just genre (i.e. slow jazz to slow classical). Surprisingly, the results showed that changing the genre had no effect on recall but changing the tempo decreased recall.
Healthy and Not So Healthy Effects
Many revealing scientific experiments, studies, and research projects have been performed to try and discover the extent of the power of music. Up until 1970, most of the research done on music had to do with studying the effects of the beat of the music. It was found that slow music could slow the heartbeat and the breathing rate as well as bring down blood pressure. Faster music was found to speed up these same body measurements.
The key component of music that makes it beneficial is order. The order of the music from the baroque and classical periods causes the brain to respond in special ways. This order includes repetition and changes, certain patterns of rhythm, and pitch and mood contrasts. One key ingredient to the order of music from the baroque and classical periods is math. This is realized by the body and the human mind performs better when listening to this ordered music.
One shining example of the power of order in music is King George I of England. King George had problems with memory loss and stress management. He read from the Bible the story of King Saul and recognized that Saul had experienced the same type of problems that he was experiencing. George recognized that Saul overcame his problems by using special music. With this story in mind King George asked George Frederick Handel to write some special music for him that would help him in the same way that music helped Saul. Handel wrote his Water Music for this purpose.
Another key to the order in music is the music being the same and different. The brain works by looking at different pieces of information and deciding if they are different or the same. This is done in music of the baroque and classical periods by playing a theme and then repeating or changing the theme. The repetition is only done once. More than one repetition causes the music to become displeasing, and also causes a person to either enter a state of sub-conscious thinking or a state of anger. Dr. Ballam goes on to say that, "The human mind shuts down after three or four repetitions of a rhythm, or a melody, or a harmonic progression." Furthermore, excessive repetition causes people to release control of their thoughts. Rhythmic repetition is used by people who are trying to push certain ethics in their music.
An Australian physician and psychiatrist, Dr. John Diamond, found a direct link between muscle strength/weakness and music. He discovered that all of the muscles in the entire body go weak when subjected to the "stopped anapestic beat" of music from hard rock musicians, including Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Queen, The Doors, Janis Joplin, Bachman - Turner Overdrive, and The Band. Dr. Diamond found another effect of the anapestic beat. He called it a "switching" of the brain. Dr. Diamond said this switching occurs when the actual symmetry between both of the cerebral hemispheres is destroyed causing alarm in the body along with lessened work performance, learning and behavior problems in children, and a "general malaise in adults." In addition to harmful, irregular beats in rock music, shrill frequencies prove to also be harmful to the body. Bob Larson, a Christian minister and former rock musician, remembers that in the 70's teens would bring raw eggs to a rock concert and put them on the front of the stage. The eggs would be hard boiled by the music before the end of the concert and could be eaten. Dr. Earl W. Flosdorf and Dr. Leslie A. Chambers showed that proteins in a liquid medium were coagulated when subjected to piercing high-pitched sounds
On Animals and Plants, Too!
Tests on the effects of music on living organisms besides humans have shown that special pieces of music (including The Blue Danube) aid hens in laying more eggs. Music can also help cows to yield more milk. Researchers from Canada and the former Soviet Union found that wheat will grow faster when exposed to special ultrasonic and musical sounds. Rats were tested by psychologists to see how they would react to Bach's music and rock music. The rats were placed into two different boxes. Rock music was played in one of the boxes while Bach's music was played in the other box. The rats could choose to switch boxes through a tunnel that connected both boxes. Almost all of the rats chose to go into the box with the Bach music even after the type of music was switched from one box to the other.
Research took a new avenue when in 1968 a college student, Dorthy Retallack, started researching the effects of music on plants. She took her focus off of studying the beat and put in on studying the different sounds of music. Retallack tested the effects of music on plant growth by using music styles including classical, jazz, pop, rock, acid rock, East Indian, and country. She found that the plants grew well for almost every type of music except rock and acid rock. Jazz, classical, and Ravi Shankar turned out to be the most helpful to the plants. However, the plants tested with the rock music withered and died. The acid rock music also had negative effects on the plant growth.
Conclusions
One cannot deny the power of music. High school students who study music have higher grade point averages that those who don't. These students also develop faster physically. Student listening skills are also improved through music education. The top three schools in America all place a great emphasis on music and the arts. Hungary, Japan, and the Netherlands, the top three academic countries in the world, all place a great emphasis on music education and participation in music. The top engineers from Silicon Valley are all musicians. Napoleon understood the enormous power of music. He summed it up by saying, "Give me control over he who shapes the music of a nation, and I care not who makes the laws" . |
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Guess it's pretty good to listen to music while you study, folks! 
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ash
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 9:51 am Post subject: |
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well yea true... but it's still depending on individual i think...pick the most suitable and ideal way for a study environment... 
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rowanlim
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 2:16 pm Post subject: |
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True...It's just cool that music is a factor in enhancing one's intelligence
More to chew on :p
| Quote: | Increase Your Intelligence With Music
Can you boost your brain power with music? The research says yes, but what kind?
You Are What You Listen To
Can music really help you think better? Yes, according to the research that has been done so far.
Listening to, and participating in music creates new neural pathways in your brain that stimulate creativity. Studies have shown that music actually trains the brain for higher forms of thinking. There was a study at the University of California, for example, about 10 years ago.
Researchers followed the progress of three year olds, split into two groups. The first group had no particular training in, or exposure to music. The second group studied piano and sang daily in chorus.
After eight months the musical three year olds were much better at solving puzzles. When tested, they also scored 80% higher in spatial intelligence than the non musical group. With such a dramatic difference, there is bound to be more research like this in the future.
There is also anectdotal evidence that listening to music, especially from Mozart's era, can help you study and learn better. Hopefully there will be research done to confirm or disprove this soon, but there is really no good reason not to do your own experimentation in this area. Stephen King writes with loud rock music playing, so maybe any benefits here are according to your own tastes or brain-organization.
Brainwave Entrainment
Want to listen to some music, and get smarter? There are a number of products out there that are based on an entirely different principle than the research mentioned above. They rely on "entraining" your brainwaves, in order to put you in a meditative state.
Brain wave frequencies vary according to mental state. Daydreaming and light meditation usually take place in the "Alpha" range of frequencies, for example. So if you listen to music containing beats at a frequency of 10 Hz it will feel very relaxing, because your brain will begin to follow this frequency and reproduce the rhythm in the music. You will automatically generate more brainwaves at a 10 Hz frequency and enter a relaxed Alpha mental state.
What these new products do is embed music with beats and pulses that entrain your brain waves to a specific frequency. You just put in the right CD or MP3 for your activity (you don't wan't an Alpha state for analytical work), and you get better brain function. Science? Partly.
It is well established that our brain wave frequencies change with our mental states and vice-versa. It is has also been clearly demonstrated that meditators can go into an alpha state at will, and that this has beneficial effects (lowering of stress, blood pressure, etc.). Do the tapes accomplish this more easily?
Yes, in my experience. I've found two products that put me in a peaceful state unlike any other music or meditative practice. Studies will prove the effects (some have already), and disprove the wilder claims of some of these products. Given the results I experienced, however, I wouldn't wait for the research, any more than I would have waited for proof of the existence of vitamin C before I'd continue eating limes to cure scurvy a hundred years ago.
Wait for more evidence of the benefits of brainwave entrainment, if you must, but why not try classical music the next time you need to study, just to see if it helps? Experiment with music - I haven't yet heard of any damage caused by Mozart. |
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calebdanvers
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:22 am Post subject: |
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WOW...sounds interesting. Actually, it has long been thought that music could help our brain. Fascinating as it is, still it is a source of distraction for some ppl. For me, I CANNOT study without music. It's been my norm to study and listen to music at the same time.  + 
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rowanlim
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| Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 3:55 am Post subject: |
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^Same here! I'm quite picky about what music to listen to...Usually I go for classical; it's like while I'm studying there's nice music that calms me but doesn't distract me...Sometimes I'd go for modern music because of the mood
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calebdanvers
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| Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 10:05 am Post subject: |
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Hmmmm...u tell me. I'm more to listening to songs than music scores. So while studying, I'd indulge myself in the lyrics of the songs on my laptop. 
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ash
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| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:59 am Post subject: |
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| calebdanvers wrote: | | Hmmmm...u tell me. I'm more to listening to songs than music scores. So while studying, I'd indulge myself in the lyrics of the songs on my laptop. |
hurm... how do u do that? how to study at the same time u looking at those lyrics all the time? hahhaa
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calebdanvers
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| Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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Hahahahhaha...Well, this is how I study. I will study and in between I will look at the lyrics and then get back to my studies again..So u can expect my eyes straying everywhere up and down, left and right. Heheheheheheheheh.  Do not practise this at home. Hahahahahhahahaha..strictly not for misers and loners cuz I expect them to be really focus-driven. Hahahhahaah
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ash
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| Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 8:00 am Post subject: |
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hahhahahhahaa...wowww first time i actualy heard that...hehe
but i thought guys have less multi-tasking ability compared to girls?
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calebdanvers
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| Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 12:08 pm Post subject: |
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hahahhahaha...i bet the word 'exception' shud fit ur queries well
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ash
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| Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 9:01 am Post subject: |
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yea i guess so... hehehe
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rowanlim
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 2:34 am Post subject: Music & Studying? |
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On the topic of music & multi-tasking, read the article below 
| Quote: | I Said, 'Not While You Study!'
Memo to: Frustrated parents
From: Health section staff
Subject: Your kids' study habits
There's some impressive new scientific research on your side when you tell your kids they can't possibly do their homework with the TV blaring, instant messenger crawling or MP3 player pumping. Unfortunately, explaining it will require you to get them unplugged from their iPods.
Tell them this: A recent study shows that the ruckus of such multi-tasking may make them learn less, and to use the wrong parts of their brains to store information. Tell 'em they can look it up in the Aug. 1 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS). Tell them it was done by researchers at UCLA (that's the University of California, Los Angeles, if they don't know).
Tell them you know nearly everybody has this bad habit, that a 2005 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly 60 percent of seventh- to 12th-graders interviewed reported multi-tasking -- watching TV, listening to music, surfing the Web and chatting online -- some or most of the time while doing homework.
You could even concede you know about people like Lauren Kyla Pitts, a 19-year-old junior at the University of Maryland, College Park, who insists that listening to music (pop, R&B, "all kinds," she says) and IM'ing with her friends are important parts of her college study routine. "For the most part I think it helps me concentrate and avoid daydreaming, which can be really distracting to me," she says.
But researchers have suspected for some time -- just as you may have -- that we pay for trying to perform more than one job at a time.
"Most would agree that there's always a cost associated with multi-tasking," said Russell Poldrack, associate professor of psychology at UCLA and co-author of the PNAS study. "We found that it can have a negative impact on learning."
To test the relationship between multi-tasking and learning, Russell and colleagues assigned 14 twenty-somethings to an exercise that involved learning how to sort various shapes into different piles based on trial and error. Each participant performed the task under two conditions: first, without any distractions; then, while listening to high and low beeps and counting only the high ones. Participants were tested on what they learned under each condition.
(At this point your kids will point out they are not counting beeps while they listen to Death Cab for Cutie. Tell them to just be quiet, that you're getting to that.)
The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) -- a technique that tracks increases in blood-oxygen content as an indicator of activity in different parts of the brain -- to evaluate participants' brain activity and function during both conditions.
"Our results told us that people can learn under either condition, but the way they learned [material] and the brain systems involved were different," said Poldrack. "For the task performed while multi-tasking, the subjects' knowledge was less flexible, meaning they could not extrapolate their knowledge to different contexts."
Investigators also discovered a difference in the brain systems and types of memory activated under multi-tasking and non-multi-tasking conditions.
The hippocampus, a region of the brain involved in sorting, processing and recalling information, is critical for declarative memory (things you can learn from text). While performing the sorting task without multi-tasking, the hippocampus was active. The distractive beeps, however, shifted activity away from the hippocampus to the striatum, which is necessary for procedural memory (that is, habitual tasks, like riding a bike).
Memories in the hippocampus are easier to recall in different situations, said Poldrack, whereas those stored in the striatum are tied closely to the specific situation in which they were learned. "This means that learning with the striatum leads to knowledge that cannot be generalized as well in new situations."
"The bottom line is that active distractions involved in multi-tasking are going to reduce one's ability to learn," he said -- even if standard performance measures, like grades, show otherwise.
For many experts, these results are just confirmation of what they already suspected.
"With multi-tasking, you're getting -- at best -- a superficial understanding of the studied material," said David E. Meyer, a professor of psychology at the placePlaceTypeUniversity of PlaceNameMichigan. Meyer offers the example of reading: "You read at various depths of understanding. You can get the bare minimum or, if you read carefully, you can also make inferences about the work."
"When learning with distractions, students' brains are trying to wing it by using a region that is not the best suited for long-term memory and understanding," said Meyer, whose own research suggests that multi-tasking takes more time and involves more error.
Please Listen: It Helps Me
At this point your teens may insist that their distractions enhance their studying.
According to Meyer, multi-tasking has less to do with study help and more to do with pleasure. "It's sort of like eating dessert while skimping on a proper meal -- you forgo nutrition for enjoyment," he said.
There are students, like Parker Fishel, 18, of placeCityAlexandria, who would take issue with these remarks. Fishel, who is about to enter PlaceNameColumbia PlaceTypeUniversity in placeStateNew York, finds music or TV to be relaxing while studying.
"I'm particular about my study environment, and music makes me more comfortable," he said. He also appreciates the consistency of music, which helps him avoid the distractions of erratic ambient noises.
His 14-year-old sister Gwen, who is entering ninth grade at West Potomac High School, prefers quiet when studying for tests. "For exams, I most definitely don't have anything going, it's just me and the textbook," she said. "But for simple things like worksheets, I may turn on some music," she said.
"I would rather have them study in silence," said Jim Fishel, the siblings' father, "but they've proven that they're able to learn the material."
Just Background Music
According to Poldrack, results from the UCLA study give researchers a good idea that active tasks -- involving "doing" processes, like counting beeps or singing along with a song in your head -- interfere with learning. What's less clear is whether passive tasks, like simply listening to background music while doing homework, is really such a bad idea.
"Our findings do not speak to passive kinds of distractions," Poldrack said. He admits that more research is needed to determine the effects of such stimuli.
There is no fixed rule for what works best, and kids' study preferences will vary, says William Stixrud, a placeSilver Spring neuropsychologist in private practice. He admits that multi-tasking activities can affect the depth of learning and application of knowledge, but suggests that background music may provide some benefit.
For some kids, music functions like white noise, drowning out distractions, according to Stixrud, who also teaches study skills to his clients. For others, it can have an emotionally soothing quality -- especially if the thought of school increases their anxiety -- or may even help some tolerate boredom associated with their work. And for those with attention-deficit disorder, who are constantly seeking stimulation, some distraction may be what they need to concentrate on their studies.
While Stixrud understands the claim that music can help some kids learn, he is loath to accept other forms of distraction as study aids. He suggests that TV, instant messaging and other "constantly changing" media are more likely to divide the mind and interrupt studying than background music.
"The most important thing to me is for kids to understand themselves and what they need," he said. Stixrud encourages students to conduct their own experiments with and without multi-tasking behaviors, to see what works best for them.
Poldrack agrees with the advice. "If listening to music makes doing homework more enjoyable for kids, then it's probably a good thing on the whole even if it does slightly affect their learning," he said. Through future studies, Poldrack wishes to address outstanding questions on the subject, including the effects of multi-tasking on brain development and the kinds of distractions that have the most impact on learning and those, if any, that may actually help.
In the meantime, you may search for the good in your children's study habits. Jim Fishel hopes that multi-tasking -- so long as it does not disrupt learning -- may actually help equip his children with skills to deal with the distractions of the workplace. "The world isn't a quiet place. Multi-tasking now could just be their preparation for the real world."
But you may not want to tell your kids that. � |
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Hm...Guess there are exceptions to the rule 
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calebdanvers
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 3:41 am Post subject: |
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 again there are exceptions to some ppl. im one of those who multi-task. and i cant study without listening to my fav songs. sorry to tell u that.
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rowanlim
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:16 am Post subject: |
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Hahaha you're certainly an exception to the rule
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