Practicing music for only few years in childhood helps improve adult brain: research

A little music training in childhood goes a long way in improving how the brain functions in adulthood when it comes to listening and the complex processing of sound, according to a new Northwestern University study.

The impact of music on the brain has been a hot topic in science in the past decade. Now Northwestern researchers for the first time have directly examined what happens after children stop playing a musical instrument after only a few years -- a common childhood experience.

Compared to peers with no musical training, adults with one to five years of musical training as children had enhanced brain responses to complex sounds, making them more effective at pulling out the fundamental frequency of the sound signal.

The fundamental frequency, which is the lowest frequency in sound, is crucial for speech and music perception, allowing recognition of sounds in complex and noisy auditory environments.

"Thus, musical training as children makes better listeners later in life," said Nina Kraus, the Hugh Knowles Professor of Neurobiology, Physiology and Communication Sciences at Northwestern.

"Based on what we already know about the ways that music helps shape the brain," she said, "the study suggests that short-term music lessons may enhance lifelong listening and learning."

"A Little Goes a Long Way: How the Adult Brain is Shaped by Musical Training in Childhood" will be published in the Aug. 22 edition of theJournal of Neuroscience.

"We help address a question on every parent's mind: 'Will my child benefit if she plays music for a short while but then quits training?'" Kraus said.

Many children engage in group or private music instruction, yet, few continue with formal music classes beyond middle or high school.

But most neuroscientific research has focused on the rare and exceptional music student who has continued an active music practice during college or on the rarer case of a professional musician who has spent a lifetime immersed in music.

"Our research captures a much larger section of the population with implications for educational policy makers and the development of auditory training programs that can generate long-lasting positive outcomes," Kraus said.

For the study, young adults with varying amounts of past musical training were tested by measuring electrical signals from the auditory brainstem in response to eight complex sounds ranging in pitch. Because the brain signal is a faithful representation of the sound signal, researchers are able to observe how key elements of the sound are captured by the nervous system and how these elements might be weakened or strengthened in different people with different experiences and abilities.

Forty-five adults were grouped into three age- and IQ- matched groups based on histories of musical instruction. One group had no musical instruction; another had 1 to 5 years; and the other had to 6 to 11 years. Both musically trained groups began instrumental practice around age 9 years, a common age for in-school musical instruction to begin. As predicted, musical training during childhood led to more robust neural processing of sounds later in life.

Prior research on highly trained musicians and early bilinguals revealed that enhanced brainstem responses to sound are associated with heightened auditory perception, executive function and auditory communication skills.

"From this earlier research, we infer that a few years of music lessons also confer advantages in how one perceives and attends to sounds in everyday communication situations, such as noisy restaurants or rides on the "L," Kraus said.

A running theme in Kraus' research is "your past shapes your present."

"The way you hear sound today is dictated by the experiences with sound you've had up until today," she said. "This new finding is a clear embodiment of this theme."

In past research, Kraus and her team examined how bilingual upbringing and long-term music lessons affect the auditory brain and how the brain changes after a few weeks of intensive auditory experiences, such as computerized training. Their current research is investigating the impact of socioeconomic hardships on adolescent brain function.

"We hope to use this new finding, in combination with past discoveries, to understand the type of education and remediation strategies, such as music classes and auditory-based training that might be most effective in combating the negative impact of poverty," she said.

By understanding the brain's capacity to change and then maintain these changes, the research can inform the development of effective and long-lasting auditory-based educational and rehabilitative programs.

Provided by Northwestern University

"Practicing music for only few years in childhood helps improve adult brain: research." August 21st, 2012.http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-music-years-childhood-adult-brain.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

Spirituality on the way to globalisation

(Phys.org) -- Spirituality is not what it once was – that much is certain, according to anthropologist Peter van der Veer. Working at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, he has examined the significance of the spiritual and its transformation processes in modern societies using the example of China and India. He has found that contradictions to the concept of spirituality are part of this and have by no means stood in the way of an international career. However, many of the modern trends contradict the original idea of spirituality.

Recently, when several thousands of people gathered in Times Square at the summer solstice to salute the sun, it was very clear just how much yoga has become a Western mass movement. But Peter van der Veer doubts whether such events in fact have anything to do with the original ideas of spirituality: "The critical elements, like those to be found in the spiritual ideas at the beginning of the 20th century, are missing."

For Peter van der Veer, spirituality, along with other secular ideas of nation, equality, the middle class, democracy and justice, is one of the core elements in the history of modernity, which were directed against the traditional social systems and moral concepts. "The spiritual and secular arose at the same time in the 19th century as two related alternatives to institutionalised religion in the Euro-American modern age", is one of the Holland-born researcher’s core theories. With this, he also rejects the commonly held view that the cradle of spirituality lies in India, in the realm of modern myths. "There isn’t even a word for spirituality in Sanskrit", he adds.

Nor was there any mention of Hinduism, Taoism or Confucianism in Asia prior to the encounter with Western imperialism. They only changed to an "-ism" as a result of the intellectual interaction with the West. Van der Veer is convinced that this flourishing spiritual exchange between East and West is a key element in the development of modernity in general and its spirituality in particular. "For me, it is part of a process that I call interactional history", explains the Director at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen.

In fact, the exchange of the new revolutionary ideas is not restricted to just communication between the US and Europe. In the search for alternatives to the institutionalised religions, Western intellectuals, artists and other social progressive thinkers had, at an early stage, turned their attention to the traditions of the East. The list of those who referred in their works or letters to Indian progressive thinkers reads like a Who’s Who of the European intellectual world, ranging from Voltaire, Herder, Humboldt, Schlegel and Novalis through to Schopenhauer and Goethe who, among other things, incorporated special theatre techniques from Sanskrit in his Faust.

Ideas came from India as the centre of spirituality and mysticism, and the birthplace of ancient philosophical traditions that can fill the gaps that had arisen for many since the Enlightenment. "These, in turn, also led to fertile ground in India itself ", explains the researcher about the reciprocal dynamics of the streams of thought. Religious movements primarily in India adopted the Western discourse on Eastern spirituality. Soon, political undertones also entered into the discussion. "Many emphasised that Hindus are the true Indians whose civilisation is threatened by decline due to Muslim rule", the Göttingen-based anthropologist says, describing the burgeoning national feeling that has become part of the debate. Others saw the West and in particular British colonial power as dangers for Hindu culture and civilisation, and turned to spirituality to recover or safeguard their own identity.

As the different concepts of spirituality show, they combine a series of contradictions and contrasts. In this vein, spirituality appears as a universal thought which, at the same time, can be linked to national concepts. As an example of this, van der Veer cites the leader of the Indian independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi. "According to Gandhi, no one who was born into a certain tradition and civilisation should be evangelized or converted", explains the researcher. Instead, each person should seek the truth in his own traditions. In this sense, Gandhi was able to argue for a spiritual nation that overcomes international religious differences. "In view of the fact that the tensions between Muslims and Hindus are part of the biggest problems facing the Indian sub-continent, the idea of such a universal, all-embracing spirituality is of exceptional political significance", says van der Veer.

Gandhi’s interpretation of spirituality is also interesting in another respect, as its basic characteristics can apply to the total concept. Again he considers the ideas a good example of the fact that spirituality is in no way the opposite of secularity. "Gandhi’s spirituality was very much linked with it when he argued that all religions should be treated equally and the State should have a neutral attitude towards them." These spiritual principles still apply in India and demonstrate the continuity between the colonial and post-colonial situation. "This could be termed Indian secularism", in van der Veer’s opinion.

Nor does van der Veer see a simple opposition of spirituality and materialism. "In fact, they often imply one another", the researcher has observed, using developments in China and India. Only as the result of liberalization of liberalising the economy under the influence of global capitalism have traditional spiritual ideas and practices such as tai chi, feng shui and qi gong again become socially acceptable in China, a country that replaced Confucianism with an aggressive secularism that had vigorously attacked religions, temples and priests. This linking of spirituality and materialism in the wake of economic globalisation can also be seen in India. In the case of India, the impetus came from the well-educated middle class which, in the 1970s and 1980s, had gone to the US in search of jobs in the medical and technical professions. "There, they were confronted by the aggressive marketing of Indian spirituality that was offered in a market for health, sports or management training", reports van der Veer. It did not take long before this practice was also imported to India.

The researcher in Göttingen considers the perhaps most interesting part of the link with neoliberal capitalism to be the global business practices in which spirituality is a means for increasing chances of success. Certainly China’s isolation between 1950 and 1980 delayed the introduction of Chinese spirituality onto the world market, but in the meantime they have followed up the global massive success of yoga with tai chi, qi gong and feng shui.

Evidently, meditation techniques and spiritual experiences fit in extremely well with the lifestyle and zeitgeist of the modern working population on the path to self-optimisation for the market and the economy. Experimental styles of having a spiritual life offer an alternative to the many secular and religious lives that appear empty. "Looking at it from the outside, they allow people within disciplining institutions to pursue their goals in their career and life without undue stress or depression", van der Veer believes. Instead of dealing with the challenges of their own life, they manage comfortably with the spiritual experience, produced in many different ways.

However, if yoga, tai chi or qi gong today serve as products of the wellness industry of a body culture to increase the efficiency of a disciplined, well-balanced workforce in a capitalist society, the movement oriented in its beginnings against established churches or against colonialism or capitalism proceeds ad absurdum.

More information: Spirituality in Modern Society, Social Research 76: 4, 2009, 1097-1120. Translated into Chinese by Dan Smyer Yu,Northwestern Journal of Ethnology, no.75, Spring 2012, pp.115-124.

Provided by Max Planck Society

"Spirituality on the way to globalisation." August 21st, 2012. http://phys.org/news/2012-08-spirituality-globalisation.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

Dont get mad, get creative: Social rejection can fuel imaginative thinking, study shows

 

It's not just in movies where nerds get their revenge. A study by a Johns Hopkins University business professor finds that social rejection can inspire imaginative thinking, particularly in individuals with a strong sense of their own independence.

"For people who already feel separate from the crowd, social rejection can be a form of validation," says Johns Hopkins Carey Business School assistant professor Sharon Kim, the study's lead author. "Rejection confirms for independent people what they already feel about themselves, that they're not like others. For such people, that distinction is a positive one leading them to greater creativity."

Social rejection has the opposite effect on people who value belonging to a group: It inhibits their cognitive ability. Kim says numerous psychological studies over the years have made this finding. With her co-authors, Lynne Vincent and Jack Goncalo of Cornell University, she decided to consider the impact of rejection on people who take pride in being different from the norm. Such individuals, in a term from the study, are described as possessing an "independent self-concept."

"We're seeing in society a growing concern about the negative consequences of social rejection, thanks largely to media reports about bullying that occurs at school, in the workplace, and online. Obviously, bullying is reprehensible and produces nothing good. What we tried to show in our paper is that exclusion from a group can sometimes lead to a positive outcome when independently minded people are the ones being excluded," says Kim, who earned her Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Cornell. She joined the Carey Business School faculty in 2011.

Kim states that the paper has practical implications for business because of the desire among managers to employ imaginative thinkers who can maximize creativity. A company might want to take a second look at a job candidate whose unconventional personality might make him an easy target for rejection, but whose inventiveness would be a valuable asset to the organization.

In the long term, Kim adds, the creative person with an independent self-concept might even be said to thrive on rejection. While repeated rebuffs would discourage someone who longs for inclusion, such slights could continually recharge the creativity of an independent person. The latter type, says Kim, "could see a successful career trajectory, in contrast with the person who is inhibited by social rejection."

More information: The paper, titled "Outside Advantage: Can Social Rejection Fuel Creative Thought?," was recently accepted for publication by the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (psycnet.apa.org/ps… 2-21656-001/). It also received a best paper award at the Academy of Management (AOM) conference held this month in Boston. It can be read online at digitalcommons.ilr… ext=articles .

Provided by Johns Hopkins University

"Dont get mad, get creative: Social rejection can fuel imaginative thinking, study shows." August 21st, 2012.http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-dont-mad-creative-social-fuel.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek