The Effect of High School Music Training to the Development of Auditory Functions - Paper Example

The article by Tierney et al. investigates the effect of high school music training to the development of auditory functions. The study finds that music training has a significant impact on the development and sustainability of auditory functions. The article argues that auditory development begins to increase in late childhood and declines in early adulthood. However, the article uses two groups of young learners to assess the effect of music learning on brain plasticity as a one develops from childhood to early adulthood. The article used young music training students and a control group undergoing different training to assess whether music training has an impact on auditory development. From the research, it was concluded that the music training based students were more responsive to auditory elements compared to the control group. The article argues that despite the fact that auditory development occurs in both groups, the music training participating students had more phonological awareness compared to the control group. The study shows that despite the difference in auditory development in the music students also the control group had similar results in rapid naming exercise as well as phonological memory. This finding holds that auditory development can be improved through music training (Tierney et al., 2015).

Consequences of the Findings

Conservative or Speculative Findings Discussions

The findings discussions in the article are conservative in nature in that the researchers use two separate stages to justify that music training has an impact on auditory development and stability. The first stage is that the children are both assessed for auditory development at the beginning of the experiment. The author uses a music training exercise and two groups of students who exposed to similar training but different subjects with the primary aim of singling out whether music training affects auditory development. The second stage compares the results between the two groups and agrees that music training affects auditory development after the second test which agrees with the author's hypothesis that music affects the auditory development and sustainability through childhood to early adulthood.

Interest of the Findings in a Field of Psychology

Tierney et al. findings have a significant interest in auditory cognitive neuroscience which aims at understanding the brain mechanism and function in auditory cognition. This field of psychology studies the role of brain development in the perception of speech, memory, and production of auditory events.

Practical and Theoretical Significance of the Study in Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience

The research can add to this particular field of psychology by proposing more study to establish the impact of music training on auditory development. Theoretically, the findings support the hypothesis that music training improves auditory development and stability of the participants (Martins et al., 2017).

Impact on the Wider World

The research has an impact on the wider world in curriculum development as well as the general development of auditory abilities in children (Schlaug et al., 2005). School curriculum should adopt music training for all students in high school to promote auditory development which will promote the students participation in auditory learning and improve the performance in other subjects (Kraus & Chandrasekaran, 2010). Further, the study holds that auditory learning should be encouraged in junior schools whereas in tertiary institutions other forms of learning should be used because auditory ability declines as one age from childhood to early adulthood. The study by Tierney et al. is in agreement with the study by Fujioka et al. which holds that music training has a significant impact in the development of auditory skills in children (Fujioka et al., 2006).

References

Fujioka, T., Ross, B., Kakigi, R., Pantev, C., & Trainor, L. J. (2006). One year of musical training affects the development of auditory cortical-evoked fields in young children. Brain, 129(10), 2593-2608.

Kraus, N., & Chandrasekaran, B. (2010). Music training for the development of auditory skills. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(8), 599-605.

Martins, M. D., Gingras, B., Puig-Waldmueller, E., & Fitch, W. T. (2017). Cognitive representation of musical fractals: Processing hierarchy and recursion in the auditory domain. Cognition, 161, 31-45.

Schlaug, G., Norton, A., Overy, K., & Winner, E. (2005). Effects of music training on the child's brain and cognitive development. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1060(1), 219-230.

Tierney, A. T., Krizman, J., & Kraus, N. (2015). Music training alters the course of adolescent auditory development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(32), 10062-10067.