Evidence suggests that people who play musical instruments are able to perform better in cognitive tests – and that even two years of such training can result in benefits that remain for life.
Enhanced cognition is known to be linked to a range of positive life outcomes, like getting a better job and enjoying improved health, but it has remained unclear whether these enhanced cognitive skills are just temporary, reports The Economist.
Now, research published in Psychological Science suggests that the benefits of musical instruments remain for years.
Studies comparing the mental abilities of musicians and non-musicians often show that musical training is related to small, but significant, cognitive benefits even when confounding factors, such as socioeconomic status, are accounted for.
Findings from experimental studies with children have also lent support to the idea that musical training might cause an improvement in cognitive ability. Indeed, there is evidence that just two years of such training enhances cognition.
Unfortunately, a major limitation of these studies is their duration. They almost always have short monitoring periods. This is not because psychologists do not yearn to monitor their participants for longer. It is more a matter of time and resources. Running experiments over the course of several decades is logistically challenging and expensive.
This has made it impossible to determine if cognitive changes associated with learning how to play an instrument remain throughout a person’s lifetime.
In their latest study, Dr Judith Okely at Edinburgh University and her colleagues, Dr Ian Deary and Dr Katie Overy, identified a solution to that age-old problem: the Lothian Birth Cohort. On a single day in 1947, the Scottish Government tested the intelligence of almost every 11-year-old child who attended school in the country.
The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 involved a group of individuals from Edinburgh and the Lothians, born in 1936, who took part in the Scottish Mental Survey of 1947.
In 1997, Deary contacted 1 091 of those people and tested them once more between 2004 and 2007. The study is still ongoing, with participants returning for further cognitive testing every three years.
Although information about musical ability was not initially collected as part of the study, while pondering the question of how learning an instrument shaped cognition over time in early 2017, Overy, a researcher at Edinburgh University’s Reid School of Music, realised it was not too late to ask the original participants about their musical experiences.
The researchers worked together to develop a questionnaire that collected information about lifetime musical experience. This was completed by the surviving cohort members who returned to the study for further testing at age 82. The participants were asked how many instruments they played and what their training was like.
They were also asked to record how many years of regular practice they had and what performance level (for example beginner, intermediate or advanced) they had reached. A total of 366 cohort members provided usable information and 117 revealed they had some degree of experience with musical instruments.
Overall, the researchers found that a significant positive relationship existed between playing an instrument and change in cognitive ability over time. More specifically, the more years and hours of practice with an instrument a person had, the more likely they were to show a positive cognitive change over the course of their life.
The effect was small but it remained significant even when the findings were adjusted to take into account confounding factors like years of education and socioeconomic status.
Precisely why learning to play a musical instrument has these effects remains unclear. The researchers theorise that driving people to regularly use a mix of focused attention, co-ordination, auditory-motor skills and memory results in advantageous cognitive changes. Yet another reward, then, from a love of music.
Study details
Experience of Playing a Musical Instrument and Lifetime Change in General Cognitive Ability: Evidence From the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936
Judith Okely, Katie Overy, and Ian Deary.
Published in The Journal of Psychological Science on 28 August 2022
Abstract
We tested whether experience of playing a musical instrument was associated with lifetime change in cognitive ability. Participants were 366 older adults from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 who had completed general cognitive-ability assessments at ages 11 and 70 and reported their lifetime experience of playing a musical instrument at age 82. This sample included 117 participants with musical-instrument experience, mostly at a beginner or an intermediate level. There was a small, statistically significant positive association between experience of playing a musical instrument and change in general cognitive ability between ages 11 and 70; specifically, individuals with more musical-instrument experience were likely to show greater gains in general cognitive ability. This association was reduced but remained statistically significant following adjustment for covariates (childhood and adulthood socioeconomic status, years of education, and disease history). These findings suggest that playing a musical instrument is associated with a long-term cognitive advantage.
The Economist article – Playing an instrument is linked to better cognition (Restricted access)
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Learning music enhances cognitive abilities in children
Music therapy may reduce depressive symptoms
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