The painting of two-headed birds
Posted on 10/05/2008 8:26:28 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Musicians Use Both Sides Of Their Brains More Frequently Than Average People
ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2008) — Supporting what many of us who are not musically talented have often felt, new research reveals that trained musicians really do think differently than the rest of us. Vanderbilt University psychologists have found that professionally trained musicians more effectively use a creative technique called divergent thinking, and also use both the left and the right sides of their frontal cortex more heavily than the average person.
The research by Crystal Gibson, Bradley Folley and Sohee Park is currently in press at the journal Brain and Cognition.
"We were interested in how individuals who are naturally creative look at problems that are best solved by thinking 'out of the box'," Folley said. "We studied musicians because creative thinking is part of their daily experience, and we found that there were qualitative differences in the types of answers they gave to problems and in their associated brain activity."
One possible explanation the researchers offer for the musicians' elevated use of both brain hemispheres is that many musicians must be able to use both hands independently to play their instruments.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Ping!
I am a jazz fusion drummer and I often use both sides of my brain.
The right side is always arguing with the left.
Whenever I take those “right” sided or “left” sided brain tests, I almost always come out exactly even. And yes, I am a musician.
“more effectively use a creative technique called divergent thinking”
Self-induced schizophrenia? I thought they used drugs to attain that state.
“We studied musicians because creative thinking is part of their daily experience”
They certainly are creative when it comes to fabricating their personal histories and defending their stance as being one of the common men when they earn $50million a year.
The Soviets did the same experiment grafting the head (and front limbs) of a dog onto another dog. The dogs didn’t get along at first but they had to learn to “deal” with the situation. The dogs did live for awhile but I think the longest such grafted pair lived 3 weeks.
You will also find that many great musicians are ambidextrous.
Musicians!
I thought the headline said Mexicans. What a disappointment.
thanks, bfl
I have solid proof this research is totally wrong:
Bruce Springsteen is a musician and obviously doesn’t use either side of his brain at all.
Ambidexterity is often encouraged in activities requiring a great deal of skill in both hands, such as juggling, swimming, percussion or keyboard music, word processing, surgery, body boxing, and combat.
I was a swimmer and drummer through HS and college. When I broke my right index finger I decided to learn to use firearms and knives with either hand.
I never understood keyboard music, even with a piano or organ in the house. I never liked to type either, but since PCs came out sometimes I type for hours at a time.
So there's a scientific reason why we are the way we are? It's not all just chance?
I was wondering about this and I just looked it up.
Classical music students like they used for this study make $50 million a year?
What is new in this article? I've known this since I was in college 40 years ago and it's why I encouraged all four of my kids to learn to play the piano and another instrument of their choice. They were still dumb as a post from about 14-18 years of age. That said, after 30+ years as a professional engineer I haven't noticed any of my non musical peers having any lesser intelligence.
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