Musicians Have Better Speech Perception In Old Age
//Summary - Level-B2//
Recent research shows that playing music helps older people maintain better hearing and brain function. In a study of three groups, older musicians could distinguish speech from background noise more easily than older non-musicians, and their brain activity looked more like that of younger people. Other long-term studies in the UK also show that regular music practice improves memory and problem-solving in old age. Although most musicians in the studies had been playing for many years, experts say starting to learn an instrument later in life can still give brain benefits.
1)
Making music is good for your brain. There was already plenty of evidence for the effect of music on memory, but now a new study found another way in which musicians are at an advantage. They showed that older adults who play musical instruments have an easier time distinguishing speech from noise. The researchers even went so far as to say that older musicians “present youth-like listening skills”.
2)
When someone talks, you have to filter out the sound of their words from background noise. Older people have a harder time with this speech-in-noise perception. Their brains are working harder to distinguish speech from noise, and that activity can be seen in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans.
3)
In this new study, three groups of people all got fMRI scans while being tested on how well they could distinguish speech from noise. One group were older people who didn’t play an instrument, one group were younger people who were also not musicians,and the final group were older musicians who all had been playing for at least 3 decades and still practiced several hours per week.
4)
They all listened to an audio recording of a woman saying several syllables in Mandarin. (This part of the study was done in China and all participants were native Mandarin speakers). While lying in the fMRI machine they could press a button to indicate which syllable they just heard.
5)
When comparing the two groups of non-musicians, the older individuals showed more activity in brain networks that process sound. But the older musicians did a lot better than their non-musical peers, and their brain activity more closely resembled that of the younger group. Each group only included about 25 people. That isn’t very large, but this is far from the only study that shows an advantage of making music on an aging brain.
6)
More brain benefits for musicians in old age:
Last year, a large study that follows thousands of aging adults in the UK also found a correlation between musicians and brain activity at old age. They saw that people who had been making music for years had better memory and a better ability to solve complex tasks compared to people of a similar age who weren’t musicians.
An earlier study showed an increase in working memory and in grey matter in the brain after just 6 months of music training, and yet another study showed that musicians also do better on music-based verbal memory tasks at older age.
7)
These studies all look at slightly different things: Some use memory tasks, some measure brain activity directly, others use tests and questionnaires. But the resounding message across all of them is that musicians are less susceptible to age-related decline in brain activity.
While many of the musicians in these research studies have been playing for decades, other research shows that the positive effect on memory even works if you pick up an instrument later in life.
8)
This message is also echoed by the speech-in-noise study’s lead author, Lei Zhang, who told PLOS Biology that “a positive lifestyle helps older adults cope better with cognitive ageing, and it is never too late to take up, and stick with, a rewarding hobby such as learning an instrument.”
Musicians Have Better Speech Perception In Old Age
https://www.forbes.com/sites/evaamsen/2025/07/29/musicians-have-better-speech-perception-in-old-age/
Add info)
The secret to musicians' young brains is playing an instrument, even if you start later in life
https://forbesjapan.com/articles/detail/81241
A)
Playing music is good for the brain. There is already ample evidence of the effects of music on memory, but it has recently been discovered that elderly people who play musical instruments are better at distinguishing between speech and noise. Researchers involved in the experiment concluded that older musicians have ‘hearing abilities similar to those of young people.’
B)
When someone is speaking, the listener must pick out their voice from the surrounding noise, but this task becomes more difficult with age. When distinguishing speech from noise, the brains of older adults must work more intensely than they did in their youth. This activity can be observed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
C)
In this study, published in the American scientific journal PLOS, participants were divided into three groups, and their ability to distinguish speech from noise was assessed using fMRI.
The first group consisted of elderly people who did not play musical instruments, the second group consisted of young people who were also not musicians, and the third group consisted of elderly musicians who had been playing musical instruments for more than 30 years and still practised several hours a week.
E)
In the experiment, all participants listened to a recording of a woman speaking several syllables in Chinese (the experiment was conducted in China, and all participants were native Chinese speakers). The subjects lay down in an fMRI machine and pressed a button to indicate which syllable they heard.
F)
The results showed that when comparing the two groups of non-musicians, the elderly had more active brain activity in processing sounds than the young adults. On the other hand, the brain activity of the elderly musicians was similar to that of the young adults and showed much better results than the group of non-musicians of the same age.
G)
Each group consisted of approximately 25 people. Although this number is not particularly large, previous studies have also shown that playing an instrument slows down brain ageing.
Even if you start learning an instrument in the latter half of your life, it has a positive effect on your brain.
H)
A large-scale study conducted in the UK last year, which tracked thousands of elderly people, also found a correlation between music and brain activity in old age. Those who had continued to play an instrument for many years had better memory and superior ability to solve complex problems compared to their non-musician peers.
A previous study showed that just six months of music lessons increased grey matter and working memory. Another study found that musicians performed well on music-based language memory tasks even in old age.
I)
All of these studies observe slightly different things, such as using memory tasks, directly measuring brain activity, or using tests and questionnaires.
However, what they all have in common is that musicians are less affected by age-related declines in brain function. Many of the musicians who participated in these experiments had been playing instruments for decades, but there are also research results showing that even those who started learning an instrument in the latter half of their lives experienced positive effects on their memory.
J)
Professor Zhang Lei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences University, the lead author of the study on conversation in noisy environments, stated, ‘A positive lifestyle can help older adults cope with cognitive ageing. It is never too late to start a fulfilling hobby, such as learning to play an instrument.’ There are many ways to maintain health in later life, but playing an instrument may be one of the most enjoyable.
