Music On The Cognitive Processing Of The Brain - 2627 Words

Abstract An important topic in psychology for many decades now has been the influence of music on the cognitive processing of the brain. Cognitive processes include attention, memory, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Recent advances in technology have revealed that music has a heavy effect on the brain’s affective, cognitive, and motor components. Evidence has been found to support the idea that music can alter the topography of the brain which improves memory and strengthens the skill of understanding language. This fact is something many educators are beginning to take advantage of. Not only does music improve the aforementioned, it also allows for quick access and recovery of information†¦show more content†¦So to what extent does music impact the cognitive processes of the human brain? First of all, cognitive processes are processes that involve knowledge and how people use their knowledge. They include matters such as attention , memory, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. All of these are very important for human behavior. Music, in particular, has been used to assist in cognition for many years; recent advances in medical technology have provided evidence confirming the effects of music on the brain’s affective, cognitive, and motor components (Jones, 2010). All things considered, it is apparent that music has a very strong and lasting effect on the cognitive processes of the human brain. To continue, one of the earliest pioneers of a field that we now know as music cognition was theoretical chemist and cognitive scientist, Christopher Longuet-Higgins. With the help of fellow cognitive scientist and computational linguist, Mark Steedman, Longuet-Higgins created the first computer model of musical perception (Honing, 2011). However, before studies of the correlations between music and cognitive processing, there were experiments regarding music and psychology as a whole. Musical psychology