Do you prefer playing the piano over swimming, singing in the school choir over taking part in a school play? Do any of these activities make you "smarter"?
For decades, experts in the media have repeatedly claimed that music learning increases "cognitive brain development" in kids. Cognitive brain development is the growing process of how children use their brains to think, explore, and solve problems independently. In other words, they claimed that kids who learn to play a musical instrument are smarter than those who didn't. However, scientists say this isn't entirely true.
How Scientists Conducted New Research
New research suggests that many older studies had flaws so that researchers could interpret the results in any way. Most wanted to find a positive trend (that music learning did indeed make kids smarter), so they simply interpreted the results that way.
Therefore, they conducted a new meta-analysis combining results of many studies, which looked at nearly 7000 children aged 3-16. The kids selected were already learning musical instruments. To measure their brain development, they performed tests on their speech, memory, speed and other motor tasks.
What the New Results Say
They only found a small number of children performed better in the tests than those who didn't learn music. Still, this small amount was not enough to prove that learning music could make you more intelligent.
How the Brain Transfers New Information
The human brain contains different parts or "domains" responsible for learning and processing new and various types of information. Psychologists believe there are two ways in which the brain learns new information, "far transfer" and "near transfer".
"Far transfer" happens when the brain learns a new skill that can transfer to another area of the brain to enhance our understanding. But instead, psychologists say that a process called "near transfer" is more likely when a specific skill transfers within the same area of the brain.
While learning a musical instrument may not make you more intelligent, scientists say some parts of music learning may improve some areas of the brain, e.g. learning to count music beats may improve arithmetics.
What the Future Holds
Scientists call for more research as some studies also reveal that intelligence might be more impacted by those who have a born, natural talent for music instead of trained learning during childhood.
So learning to play the piano may not necessarily make you "smarter", but perhaps the enjoyment in making music is a great reward all by itself!
Did You Know?
Anything that makes a sound can be considered a musical instrument.
Flutes are one of the oldest known instruments, and simple versions existed more than 40,000 years ago.
A piano has over 7500 working parts that all come together to produce a melodic sound.
Glossary
Cognitive brain development: The growing process of how children use their brains to think, explore, and solve problems independently
Meta-analysis: A report that combines the results of multiple scientific studies.
Brain Domains: Different parts of sections of the brain.
Far transfer: A process when the brain learns a new skill that can transfer to another area of the brain.
Near transfer: A process when a specific skill transfers within the same area of the brain.
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