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Chan Siu Wan (Carmen) 08611930t Koo Chun Yin (Koocy) 08645945t So Ka Ming (Christina) 08656093t

**“The power of music” to enhance cognitive development in childhood ** media type="youtube" key="MK6heUdRr-E" width="295" height="244"

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An overview of the effect of music on cognitive development (Carmen) Music is one of the greatest things coming from human hearts, brains, minds and mouths. Music is the universal language of mankind. We can find it in different races and cultures around the world. It consists of vocal or instrumental sound processing of a degree of rhythm, melody, timbre and pitch. When we hear about some kinds of nice music, we may feel relaxing, happy and exciting. Why music can be so biologically powerful? In recent decade, there are tremendous amount of researches to show that music can have a positive contribution to biology, neurophysiology, psychology and medicine. From the biological view, a study shown that there was a significant difference of the anterior corpus callosum between musicians and non-musicians (Schlaug et al., 1995). Another study revealed that children with 36 weeks music program had an increase in IQ compared with those had not participated in music program but they only received drama lessons (Schellenberg, 2004). Music making involves a combination of sensory, cognitive and motor functions. Thus, there are tremendous convincing evidence of a link between the effect of music and improvement of the cognitive domains. Therefore, there are many music training schools and private institutions providing different kinds of music trainings or programs for children in Hong Kong and around the world. This paper aims to focus on elaborating how music has an effect on different brain regions, music audition perception and how it enhances cognitive development especially in spatial reasoning, perceptual organization and sequential ordering in children.

How music can influence our brain (Koocy) __Music and the auditory perception__ Auditory perception is one of the earliest sensory systems developed and musical awareness can be observed in the infant stage (Frank, 1990). In a research done by Papousek, they discovered the infants can match the pitch, intensity and melodic contour of the mother’s song while they are two months. While the music is played, we hear the sounds through the waves with different frequency (pitch) and amplitude (intensity). The sound waves collected by the pinnae and through the ear canal to the ear drum, in this section, the sound is in a way of air vibration. After that, the sound will pass on by mechanical vibration in the middle ear, which included hammer, anvil and stirrup. In this process, the sound waves will become stronger and convey to the oval window and the cochlea. The oval window is an opening in the bony wall between the middle ear and the inner ear. It is covered by a flexible membrane, and on its outside rests the footplate of the stirrup. As the stirrup moves in and out, driven by the eardrum through the hammer and the anvil, it communicates a vibration to this membrane, behind which is a gelatinous, serous fluid called the endolymph. The endolymph is similar to the fluid inside all human cells. As the endolymph is compressed, it needs a pressure release, and that is provided by the round window. The round window is another opening between the middle and inner ear, also covered by a flexible membrane. When the stirrup pushes the endolymph in, the round window bulges back out. Sound has now become a flow of fluids. This fluids flow is working in the cochlea and change hydrodynamic to electrochemical. In the cochlea, there are many hair cells lie between the basilar membrane and the tectorial membrane. The vibrations of the fluid will displace the hair cells and excite the auditory nerves. Finally, the stimuli of the sound waves will reach the auditory regions which are in the temporal lobes. It is above the middle and inner ear, but the left ear is connected to the right temporal lobe, on the other hand, the right ear is connected to the left temporal lobe. The sound wave will process information in here (Kalat, 2009). __Music and language__ According to Pinker, neuroscience researches find that music is not only has effects on the auditory system. Music also has lasting effects on nonmusical brain functions, for example language. Music and language have similar acoustic characteristic, many studies suggest speech and music perception recruit shared computational systems, and a common substrate in Broca’s area for hierarchical processing. The researchers using different methods, such as ERP, MEG, fMRI, to found that the brainwave activity of syntactic processing of language and tonal-harmonic processing of music are similar and many brain areas are overlapped (Aniruddh, 2010, Corianne, 2011). Beside the brain area, there has another type of studies use implicit memory to find out the relationship of language and music. The study is find out we learn music and language by the implicit memory system. While learning the grammar, the rules of language within the linguistics structure are very similar to the implicit learning of rhythm, pitch, and melodic structures in music (Marc, Elizabeth, & Patrick, 2011). __Music and memory__ Memory also affected by a different way through emotional music. Some of the research suggested that music can draw forth strong emotions and it can associate with the events and form episodic memory. One of the researches discovers that musical excerpts remember better and valence seems to be a useful modulator of episodic long-term memory for music. It evidently shows strong emotions related to the musical experience assist with memory forming and retrieving (Susann, 2008). __Music and emotion__ Another aspect that had many discussions is the musical effect on emotion. Many studies claimed that music can arouse emotion and can be used for therapy. Some studies found out the nerves for transfer music and pain are partly the same, so some of the doctors play music to let the patients reduce the painful feeling. On the other hand, one of the studies had been done on the patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration, the result show that impaired recognition of emotions from music was specifically associated with grey matter loss in a distributed cerebral network including insula, orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex, anterior temporal and more posterior temporal and parietal cortices, amygdala and the subcortical mesolimbic system (Rohani, Susie, Jonathan, Elizabeth, Disa, Chris, Sophie, & Jason, 2011). __Music and attention and arousal__ Music also has the effect on attention and arousal, one of the familiar situations is that mothers sing to get their infants attention. A study done by Trainor show those infants pay more attention to their mothers singing than to their mothers speaking, infants looked at their mother more. Further study also found out mothers singing to the infants more, the infants enhanced the survival in difficult ancestral conditions. Since, singing can shorten the distance between infants and mothers, it form the attachment. While infants feel helplessness, sad, dangerous or uncomfortable, mothers’ song will let them feel relax and comfortable. Infants cry less, sleep more induction and other positive effect, it led to more healthy. However, it can’t work while the song is singing by father. The reason is the style of mothers’ singing is differs, mothers’ voice in a high pitch level, slower tempo in a more emotive way (Sandra, 2001).

Music training can improve children cognitive function (Carmen) In recent decade, there are more and more academic studies on the correlation between music training and cognitive development. Research studies shown that music can enhance preschool children’s spatial-temporal reasoning continuously (Rauscher, F.,1997). The ability is important for conceptualizing and finding solutions in multi-step problems that arise in areas such as architecture, engineering, mathematics, science, etc. As noted that most of this knowledge is difficult to describe in verbal formation, it mostly depend on our abstract thinking (Rauscher, F. 1994). One of the studies evaluated how music education program has an effect on cognitive development among high-risk elementary school children. All of the participants (N=81) aged seven to nine year old from Jaffa Institute Child-Care Centers. They were divided into experimental group (n=45) and control group (n=36). Children in the experimental group participated in music lessons, while children in the control group received no music lessons. Children in the experimental group needed to study music two to three hours per week and it lasting for two years. They also participated in a minimum of two music related activities which including music appreciation, private instrumental lessons and group performances. Pre and post assessments evaluated the development of cognitive skills through Raven Standard Matrixes and Complex Figure Tests. The Raven matrixes are non-verbal multiple choice which measures a person’s ability of reasoning (Diagram 1). The Complex Figure Tests require a person to recognize a picture of a complex geometric figure. A person needs to copy the figure and draw it from memory. This test is aimed at testing children’s ability to design a strategy to solve the difficult tasks (Diagram 2). Diagram 1: Raven matrixes test (Source: http://www.thinktonight.com)



Diagram 2: Complex Figure Test (Source: http://www.psycnet.apa.org)

Researchers used ANOVA to evaluate the research hypothesis (i.e. the experimental group would show better results on cognitive improvement in Raven’s test as well as in the Complex Figure Tests when comparing with the control group). The results show that both groups have improvement on their cognitive levels. Nevertheless, the experimental group has a greater improvement in both test results which shown in figure 1, 2 and 3 (Portowitz, Lichtenstein, & Brand, 2009). According to the study, to some extent there is a strong association between the music training and the improvement of spatial-temporal reasoning as well as problem-solving ability.

(Figure 1: Raven test pre-and pro-intervention cognitive levels score)



(Figure 2: Complex Figure copy scores)



(Figure 3: Complex Figure memory scores)

The relationship between music and hemisphere In the early of eighteen century, people believed that left and right hemisphere likes a mirror, they are working together. However, by the exertion of the early neurologists and researchers, we realized that each hemisphere is responsible for controlling opposite side of the body nowadays. Although verbal language as well as music is based on a sound pattern to express the thought and feeling, many studies shown the left hemisphere is playing a prominence role in language functions in general, while the right hemisphere is mainly responsible for music. Therefore, it is necessary to know more about how music has an effect on the human’s right hemisphere. In fact, the concept of cerebral dominance became popular. One of the studies invited 200 patients who have left or right brain damage to finish a standard test. The test was designed to study the patient’s verbal ability, ability to appreciation of spatial relationship, and ability to manipulate forms. The results showed that patients had a poor performance in the test if their left hemisphere were damaged, while patients with right hemisphere damage had a poor performance on nonverbal tests which included manipulation of geometric figures, completion of missing parts of figures, puzzle assembly, and other visual spatial related tasks (Springer & Deutsch, 1993). Although many studies proved the fact that there are close relationship between music and the right hemisphere, it does not mean that music is resided exclusively in the right hemisphere. An investigation in mental ability of music and language indicated that the left hemisphere also controls a certain aspects of rhythm, duration, temporal order, etc. Thus, one hemisphere should not be defined as “dominant” for music, but rather both hemispheres are interacted with each other according to their specialization (Gates & Bardshaw, 1977, P.403). If music is not exclusively affecting the right hemisphere, it implies the other cortical areas also have reaction to music stimulation. Besides, the environmental factors also play a critical role on children’s musical learning and cognitive development. Musical teaching methods and other factors

Learning music engages highly complex brain activities. According to Gruhun (2004, P.124), It involves the interaction between cortical motor regions, the basal ganglia, spatial coordination in parietal lobe, auditory control in primary and secondary auditory areas, bilateral cerebellar hemispheres as well as visual imagination. He pointed out that the methods of music education is prominent important. Two experimental groups received different musical teaching methods, researchers revealed that two groups had a significant different brain activation patterns though they learned the nearly same task (Gruhn, 2004). In the study of Portowitz, Lichtenstein, & Brand which mentioned above, they found that interactive classroom setting, one by one private lessons and the opportunity of musical performance can enhance children’s enthusiastic to learn music. Although music trainings and programs are proven effectiveness to enhance children’s cognitive development, other factors including teaching methods, socio-economic status of children’s parents and the culture values on importance of the music may affect children’s opportunity to learn music. In fact, learning is a complex process. It also involves many personal factors such as personal motivation, commitment, emotion and different musical experience. These internal and external factors will affect the cognitive performance when children receiving musical training. Experiment: With Music Training VS No Musical Training (Chris) Cognitive development is a process from childhood to adolescence. It includes intelligence, memory and language acquisition. The biological, social and environment factors will affect the cognitive development in the childhood stage (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2004). Music training has the positive effect to the child’s brain and cognitive development. The reason for its effectiveness is that playing an instrument requires a lot of different skills, including reading the musical notation, the rhythm, memory the long musical passages. In research (Schlaug et al., 2005), there had a cross-sectional comparison of fifty 9 – 11 years old children for the difference of the brain development in the instrumentalists (with an average of four years training) versus non-instrumentalists. The instrumentalists group performed better in the Gordon’s Intermediate Measures of Music Audition, the Vocabulary subtest of the WISC-III. Furthermore, the instrumentalists showed strong in the phonemic awareness test (Auditory Analysis), the Raven’s Progessive Matrices, and the key Math test. There had no significant differences in the Object Assembly or Block Design tests. This could explain due to the music training provided the skill to enhance the spatial reasoning because music notation itself is spatial. The understanding of the rhythm could help the development of learning mathematics, pattern recognition and understanding the pattern of proportion, ration, fractions and subdivision. The ability to segment streams of sound into small perceptual units could improve the phonemic awareness skill. In the biological view, the instrumentalists had significantly more gray matter volume in the sensorimotor cortex and the occipital lobe bilaterally. In the STG activation (slightly anterior and inferior to Heschl’s gyrus), both instrumentalists and non-instrumentalists showed strong bilateral activation. However, the instrumentalists showed more activation, particularly in the right and posterior inferior and middle frontal gyrus in both hemispheres. This happens might cause by the additional extratemporal lobe activation due to music training involved lot of intensive performance some functional tasks. This played an important role in the integration of auditory events into large units, or the sequential ordering of behaviourally relevant auditory events.

In another research (Ho., et al, 2003), it also proved that the music training demonstrated better verbal memory. It also showed that there was no difference in other domains of functioning, such as academic performance and visual memory. In the experiment, it was going to explore the effect of music training on the memory of children and refine the temporal relationship between the duration of music training and the development of verbal memory. A cross-sectional study was used. Ninety male right-handed were invited to the study, their age was six to fifteen which from a school in Hong Kong. Forty-five of the participants were members of the Band and Orchestra Program of the school and had 2.6 years average in learning the music. The rests were the classmates of the participants with no musical training experience. They all measured by the HKLLT-Form One for the verbal memory test. This is a sensitive verbal memory test (Chan et al., 1998; Chan, Kwok, et al 2000; Cheung, Chan, Law, Chan & Tse, 2000; Chan, Ho & Poon, 2002). In the experiment, after three learning trials and after 10 min and, 30 min delayed recall trials. The participants need to recall as many as they could. The result was significantly that the MT (music training) group could recall more words. Visual memory would measure by the Brief Visuospatial Memory. The test and the procedures were similar to verbal memory test. The result was no difference in visual memory abilities among two groups. In the article, it also stated that the verbal memory advantage had been demonstrated in groups of young adults with music training in Canada (Kilgour, Jackobson, & Cuddy, 2000). Therefore, it seemed that the effect of music training on verbal memory could be observed in different cohorts and countries. Limitation (Chris)

Although many cross-sectional studiespointed out the effect of musical training was closely related to motor-sensory, auditory domains and cognitive development, only the experimental study or the longitudinal study are more convincing and conclusive. It is because the cross-sectional study can only measure at the same point in time, it may not be possible to distinguish whether the exposure proceeded or followed the musical training, and therefore the cause and effect relationships are uncertain. Nevertheless the longitudinal study is time consuming, and some participants may withdraw and some uncontrollable factors may occur during the study. Therefore, it is not easily to gather results.Besides, the sample size is small in many cross-sectional studies related to our topic. It is difficult to generalize to the population. In the research of Ho, the neuroimaging data was not available to compare the planum temporale of children with and without music training for testing the hypothesis. However, the article explained that the memorization of many musical notes led to a better memory ability. Therefore, it contributed to have better verbal memory in the children with music training. Another limitation of a pre-assessments and post-assessments evaluated the development of cognitive skills of the children in Portowitz’s research, it was not randomly assigning the subjects between experimental and control groups. A different location of the children’s centre may imply different socioeconomic status of the parents as a result of different cognitive performance of the experimental group. Moreover, there is no way to judge whether the process of pre-test assessment actually influenced the results or not, as there is no baseline measurement in the study. Some internal validity problems may threaten the result including history, pre-test effects, statistical regression, etc. As mention above, some uncontrollable personal factors such as children’s leaning motivation, emotion, and inheritance talent may have a great impact on the experiment results. Conclusion (Carmen) Music processing in the brain is a very complex mechanism. Which part of the brain exactly deals with music perception and recognition (that including time and pitch relations, memory, music notation and emotion) are still controversy. In one music- related brain research, it stated that music-listening is stimulated and analytically processed in left part of the brain of musicians. Non-musicians used right part of the brain which is a more emotional or holistic perception process according to Bever & Chiarello (1974, cited in Pape, 2005, p. 189). We believed that music is not resided exclusively in the right hemisphere but it is influenced by different brain areas unequally. In the view of Peretz & Zatorre (2005, P.106-107), ’music pitch relations seems predominantly involve the right auditory cortex, whereas musical time relations requires bilateral neural networks’. Among all these literatures, the extent to which individual factors, musical teaching strategy and other environmental factors are of the same importance to brain networks during music processing. Reference Aniruddh, P. (2010) //Music, Biological Evolution, and the Brain//. Retrieved from: []

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