研究:學音樂能增強語言能力
Learning to play a musical instrument can change your brain, with a US review finding music training can lead to improved speech and foreign language skills.
Although it has been suggested in the past that listening to Mozart or other classical music could make you smarter, there has been little evidence to show that music boosts brain power.
But a data-driven review by Northwestern University has pulled together research that links musical training to learning that spills over into skills including language, speech, memory, attention and even vocal emotion.
Researcher Nina Kraus said the data strongly suggested that the neural connections made during musical training also primed the brain for other aspects of human communication.
"The effect of music training suggests that, akin to physical exercise and its impact on body fitness, music is a resource that tones the brain for auditory fitness and thus requires society to re-examine the role of music in shaping individual development," the researchers said in their study.
Kraus said learning musical sounds could enhance the brain's ability to adapt and change and also enable the nervous system to provide a scaffolding of patterns that are important to learning.
The study, published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, looked at the explosion of research in recent years focused on the effects of music training on the nervous system which could have strong implications for education.
The study found that playing an instrument primes the brain to choose what is relevant in a complex process that may involve reading or remembering a score, timing issues and coordination with other musicians.
"A musician's brain selectively enhances information-bearing elements in sound," Kraus said in a statement. "In a beautiful interrelationship between sensory and cognitive processes, the nervous system makes associations between complex sounds and what they mean."
The study reviewed literature showing, for example, that musicians are more successful than non-musicians in learning to incorporate sound patterns for a new language into words.
美國一項研究發現，學習樂器能夠使大腦發生變化，音樂訓練能夠提高演講和外語水平。
儘管過去有人認爲聽莫扎特或其他古典音樂可以讓人變得更聰明，但是並沒有足夠的證據證明音樂能提高智力。
如今，美國西北大學的一項研究以數據爲支持，對探討音樂訓練對語言、演講、記憶力、注意力甚至情感抒發等能力的影響的相關研究進行了分析。
研究人員妮娜•克勞斯說，這些數據充分表明，音樂訓練過程中所產生的神經元連接能增強大腦在人際交流其它方面的能力。
研究人員在研究報告中說：“音樂訓練所產生的這種影響表明，與體育鍛煉對身體健康的影響一樣，音樂能夠增強大腦活力，使聽覺更加敏銳。所以我們的社會有必要重視音樂在個人發展中所起的作用。”
克勞斯說，學習聲樂能夠提高大腦的應變能力，也可以讓神經系統建立起一個有利於學習的結構。
這一在《神經系統科學自然評論》上發表的研究對近幾年來該領域新增的大量研究進行了回顧和分析，這些研究主要關注的是音樂訓練對神經系統的影響及其可能會對教育產生的重要影響。
研究發現，演奏樂器能增強大腦在複雜的過程中分辨有價值信息的能力，這一複雜的過程可能包括看譜、記譜，計時或與其他樂師配合等。
克勞斯在一項聲明中說：“一個音樂家的大腦能夠有選擇性地分辨出聲音中含有信息的元素。在感覺和認知過程的相互作用下，神經系統能把複雜的聲音和它們所表達的意思聯繫起來。”
研究人員對以往的研究資料進行分析後發現，懂音樂的人將一種新的語言的發音拼寫成單詞的能力強於未接受過音樂訓練的人。
Vocabulary:
spill over into sth.: 發展成（Her sympathy for him spilled over into love. 她對他的同情發展成爲愛情。）
vocal: 用語言表達的
prime: to make something ready for use or action 把（事物）準備好
akin to: 類似於
scaffolding: 骨架，框架
explosion: a large, sudden or rapid increase in the amount or number of something（突增；猛增；激增）
relevant: having ideas that are valuable and useful to people in their lives and work（有價值的；有意義的）
