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Music Is one of the Few Activities That Involve Using the Whole Brain

Essay by   •  February 1, 2012  •  Research Paper  •  2,089 Words (9 Pages)  •  1,926 Views

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Music is one of the few activities that involve using the whole brain. People learn through music and their mind grows faster because of it. Music is a powerful thing, and when we understand its significance, it can bring dramatic positive changes into our lives through physical performances, psychological, and health.

Music is source of motivation and inspiration that is much valued within the realms of sport and improves physical performances. According to Karageorghis and Simpson (2006) music improves athletic performances of individual. Karageorghis (1999) indicated that the key characteristics of motivational music are that it has a fast tempo and rhythm, while it enhances energy and induces bodily action. Indeed, musical rhythm relates to the periodicities of the human body such as respiration, heart beat, walking and so on. Humans perform motor tasks at a preferred tempo that reflects their optimum level of temporal and rhythmic accuracy and biomechanical efficiency. Essentially, during vigorous activity there will be stronger preferences for high tempo music owe to increase in physiological arousal. Karageorghis and Simpson have conducted an experiment that support research hypothesis which is the times in the motivational and oudeterous synchronous music conditions were shorter than those in the no music control conditions.

Besides that, music also improves body movement. According to study conducted by Bernatzky G, Bernatzky P, Hesse HP, Staffen and Laduner G (2004) measurement of fine motor coordination with the 'Vienna Test System' showed an improvement in to (aiming, line tracking) of the four subtests after listening to music. The patients improved their performance with the right arm significantly the subtest aiming-error-time. No statistical differences were found in the other to subtests (steadiness, tapping) in both groups. There is also no improvement in frequency of tapping movement on the power-force-working plate. Accordingly, music effects more precision of a movement than the speediness. This study gives evidence that specific music can improve the precision of arm and finger movements. Besides that, music reduces muscle tension and improves body movement and coordination. Music may play an important role in developing, maintaining and restoring physical functioning in the rehabilitation of persons with movement disorders.

Apart from that, listening to music it helps to improve productivity of an individual. According to a report in the journal Neuroscience of Behaviour and Physiology, a person's ability to recognize visual images, including letters and numbers, is faster when either rock or classical music is playing in the background. Human recognition of visual images in the form of Arabic numerals affected by "noise" showed a reduction in the time needed for recognition and an increase in the probability of making a correct identification in a rich sensory environment (use of classical or rock music). There was no direct relationship between the volume of the music and its positive effect on the recognition of visual images. The greatest changes in the recognition time and quality of correct recognition occurred at specific volume levels for both classical and rock music, and there were individual differences. The efficiency of image recognition decreased when the same musical fragments were used again with the same volume. The data are interpreted as a manifestation of the dominant.

The power of music to affect psychological condition is quite intriguing as it help to boost up our brain performances. There is a research conducted on healthy older adult to test does music enhance cognitive performance in them or not. This had been tested by Nicola Mammarella, Beth Fairfield and Cesare Cornoldi (2006). The study adopted a repeated-measures design, with type of background which is Vivaldi vs. White noise vs. No-music as within-subjects variable. Twenty four healthy adults participated in the experiment. The result of the experiment is that it was possible to obtain the Vivaldi effect in a group of healthy elderly people with two measures of working memory functions: listening to a Vivaldi excerpt led subjects to show a significant increase in phonological working memory capacity and phonemic fluency. In addition it was found that the effect was stronger than white-noise background conditions, supposed to increase memory performance. Overall, the results obtained in this study appear to support previous research on the effect of music on cognition which is improving the intellectual performance. The best explanation that put forward to account for this effect is based on arousal and mood effects produced by music. The arousal-and-mood hypothesis claims that music enhances the level of arousal, and consequently attention processes benefit, and promote positive mood. The theory holds that adding entertaining auditor background makes the learning tasks more interesting and thereby increases the learner overall level of arousal. This eventually increase the level of attention by the individual and more material is processed by the learner result in facilitates the recall of information. Besides, from this study shows that classical music significantly increased working memory performance compared with the no-music condition. In addition, Mozart's music and baroque music, with a 60 beats per minute beat pattern, activates 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, cause the brain to be more capable of processing information. Musical training on the other hand have much better effect than just listening to classical music. There is clear evidence from Ho, Cheung and Chan (2003) that children who take music lessons develop a better memory compared with children with no musical training. This is because, music training lead to a greater extent of cortical reorganisation in the left temporal region and thus yield increasingly better verbal learning ability.Music training during childhood serve as a kind of sensory stimulation that somehow contributes to the better development of the left temporal lobe in musician, which in turn facilitates cognitive processing mediated by that specific brain area, which is, verbal memory.

Not many of us realise that music can help us to improve concentration and attention. According to Patston, Hogg & Tippett (2007), in their collaboration of University of Auckland and Dr Lucy Patston, they had examined the effect of musical expertise and training on the lateralisation of visuospatial processing. Attention in healthy

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