After years of Mom telling you to turn off the music to protect your ears, there’s finally scientific evidence that music can be good for your hearing.
New research reveals that musicians can pick out relevant speech sounds from a noisy environment better than non-musicians, suggesting that musical training helps people hear better under “speech-in-noise” conditions like a restaurant or crowded room.
“Speech-in-noise is challenging for everyone, but it’s especially challenging for older adults and children with learning disabilities,” said neuroscientist Nina Kraus of Northwestern University, who co-authored the paper published this month in the journal Ear and Hearing. “If we could establish that musical experience could help perception of speech-in-noise, that has all kinds of provocative implications in terms of encouraging policy-makers and parents to pursue musical education for their kids.”
Kraus and colleagues compared the performance of 16 musicians and 15 non-musicians on two tests of speech-in-noise perception. In the both experiments, participants had to listen to simple sentences under noisy conditions and repeat back what they heard. By adjusting the level of background noise and counting the number of correctly repeated words or sentences, the researchers calculated a threshold signal-to-noise ratio for each person.
On both speech tests, musicians dramatically outperformed their non-musician counterparts and also demonstrated better working memory. “The extent of musical experience also mattered,” Kraus said. “The earlier you began and the more years you had been practicing, the better your speech-in-noise perception.”
Wired (Thanks BethanDenro)
Strange – my speech-in-noise perception is terrible, and I play a bunch of musical instruments. Is this because my brain finds the music more interesting than the conversation? That would definitely be the case if the bar/restaurant was playing Zappa.
I know it hasn’t got much to do with it… But I just wanted to add that musical people are also really good at languages (and accents)….
Cause and effect? Could It be people with more acute hearing tend to be able to dissect What they’re listening to, And are More likely tO want to pick up an instRument? I Can’t play anything, and oftEn marvel at how individuaL sounds and noises come together and intertwine so beaUtifully to form the banging house music I’m raving away to in thE wee small hourS!!
Hmm, i messed up my capItals there slightly… perhaps I Was trying to hArd. I also fiNd it much easier to pick out cerTain voices in a sea of Mixed conversatiOns, usually people who talk foR a living are easier to listEn to. I suspeCt that’s probabLy more to do with natUral speEch patterns, and Speed… and quite possibly content!
Tell you what…if someone is talking to me in a public place with music in the background and is wearing what Zappa is wearing in hat piccie….then I´m not hearing a-ney-thang @ all
I have been playing musical instruments all my life, and Ive just finished my first year on a degree course at music college and after a year completely surrounded my music my ability to pick out sounds is far superior to my family, who are all non musicians. I can always hear my mother calling us to come for tea over the sound of the TV when the others can’t and are in the same room. And I can always hear mobile phones ringing in other rooms when others can’t.
As professional musicians, its important to be able to pick out different sounds of different instruments in the mix so it makes sense. We have to do ear training at college where we have to transcribe every instrument in a pepiecef music. Which means we have to pick out VERY subtle sounds sometimes.
Ehehehe .. but not for so long .. those musicians .. Never wondered why some concerts become louder and louder??? They need some hearing device after a while … Ofcourse .. when you play the piano, classical .. that’s something else than rock concerts, heavy metal and such. So they should be more specific. A musician is not someone who plays an instrument for a hobby ….
Foussing might become better in noisy environments (studying with music on drives you more into that specific spot in your brain, prevends you from going out on all other stuff up there ..), a necessity .. but in not so loud environments the backdraft might pop up … meaning, you will need to be able to work those structures from full awareness .. go that study focus and get out of it afterwards again as well …
I hear a ringing in my ears seeing that pic …. ….
@Marc – would you say that your hearing has improved since going to uni then? Or have you always had a keen ear?
Just a thought, but is this a hint that we need to listen more closely to The Events trailer because there are things we are not hearing because we are too busy listening to Derren, or am I just paranoid!?!?
On a serious note…I do tend to pick up on convo´s in a large crowd though, i am always bothered when (for example) my mother tells me something not so nice about someone who is nearby (yes she sometimes does that) i think others can hear her…while that is not the case, seeing the lack of reactions…
Musician-wise…I´ve been to music schools for many years when i was younger, and was never able to read notes properly, could read them once, twice for practice then, when i had to play the music it is always from pitch it´s stuck in my head and reading the notes on paper then becomes a burden. My teachers were struggling with this and tried to force me to read lol, ehh…so i did, and just stared blanc at the music notes while playing, teacher next to me…useless tricks!
Surely that’s because musicians are more musically intelligent in the first place? They’re musicians because they’re more sensitive to and aware of sounds. I guess most intelligences can progress and digress though can’t they?
Hmm…I play in a band and my speech-in-noise perception is awful too. This is ruddy rollocks!
well i play a couple of things ‘not officially’ but i tend to actually hear things that aren’t there. hmm,
I played the piano for a while and am quite musically-minded and I do tend to pick up on things that others don’t always hear. But then again, I don’t have great eyesight and perhaps my ears are compensating a bit more for that? Who knows…..
LC x
I don’t know about that music hacking stuff but that is a stunning picture of the man up there … You can see that it is from the past …. Nowadays we”re not lost in the bushes anymore. Just luv the tarzan theme …
@ Paul W
I don\’t think this article is referring to people who just have a general interest in music or people who are in \’bands\’ (drums, guitar and bass). I think it\’s more about people who are have orchesteral training and play in bands of more than say 20 people where the harmonies and bass parts can get lost if not specificly listened for.
hacks?
x
@Colin Gilchrist – I would say since ive gone to uni, I suppose studying music has forced me to have to be able to pick out different instrumens in music.