a new Canadian study shows young children who take music lessons have better memories than their nonmusical peers.

    Parents who spend time and money to teach their children music, take heart -- a new Canadian study shows young children who take music lessons have better memories than their nonmusical peers.

    The study, published in the online edition of the journal Brain, showed that after one year of musical training, children performed better in a memory test than those who did not take music classes.

    "(The research) tells us that if you take music lessons your brain is getting wired up differently than if you don't take music lessons," Laurel Trainor, professor of psychology, neuroscience and behavior at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, said.

    "This is the first study to show that brain responses in young, musically trained and untrained children change differently over the course of a year," said Trainor .

    Over a year they took four measurements in two groups of children aged between four and six -- those taking music lessons and those taking no musical training outside school -- and found developmental changes over periods as short as four months.

    The children completed a music test in which they were asked to discriminate between harmonies, rhythms and melodies, and a memory test in which they had to listen to a series of numbers, remember them and repeat them back.

    Trainor said while previous studies have shown that older children given music lessons had greater improvements in IQ scores than children given drama lessons, this is the first study to identify these effects in brain-based measurements in young children.

    She said it was not that surprising that children studying music improved in musical listening skills more than children not studying music.

    "On the other hand, it is very interesting that the children taking music lessons improved more on general memory skills that are correlated with nonmusical abilities such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing, mathematics and IQ," she said.

    那些花錢(qián)花時(shí)間讓孩子學(xué)音樂(lè)的家長(zhǎng)們可以放心了，加拿大的一項(xiàng)最新研究表明，上過(guò)音樂(lè)課的兒童比那些沒(méi)上過(guò)音樂(lè)課的同齡兒童記憶力要好。

    這項(xiàng)研究結(jié)果在《大腦》雜志的網(wǎng)站上發(fā)表，研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，上過(guò)一年音樂(lè)課的兒童在一項(xiàng)記憶力測(cè)試中的表現(xiàn)比沒(méi)有上過(guò)音樂(lè)課的兒童好。

    安大略省漢密爾頓市麥克馬斯特大學(xué)研究心理學(xué)、神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)科學(xué)和行為學(xué)的勞雷爾·特芮娜教授說(shuō)："這項(xiàng)研究告訴我們，是否上音樂(lè)課會(huì)對(duì)大腦的發(fā)育產(chǎn)生不同影響。"

    特芮娜說(shuō)："這項(xiàng)研究首次發(fā)現(xiàn)，受過(guò)音樂(lè)訓(xùn)練的兒童和未受過(guò)音樂(lè)訓(xùn)練的兒童的大腦反應(yīng)在一年內(nèi)發(fā)生了不同的變化。

    在一年的時(shí)間里，研究人員對(duì)兩組4至6歲的兒童進(jìn)行了四項(xiàng)測(cè)定，其中一組是在課外時(shí)間上音樂(lè)課的兒童，另一組是未上音樂(lè)課的兒童，研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，在短短的四個(gè)月內(nèi)，這兩組兒童的大腦發(fā)育都有所不同。

    參加此項(xiàng)研究的兒童接受了一項(xiàng)音樂(lè)測(cè)試和一項(xiàng)記憶力測(cè)試。在音樂(lè)測(cè)試中，研究人員要求這些兒童對(duì)和聲、節(jié)奏和旋律進(jìn)行鑒別；而在記憶力測(cè)試中，他們需要聽(tīng)一系列的數(shù)字，將它們記住，然后再把它們復(fù)述出來(lái)。

    特芮娜教授說(shuō)，此前已有研究表明，在年齡稍大的兒童中，上過(guò)音樂(lè)課的兒童智商平均分比上過(guò)戲劇課的兒童進(jìn)步得快。而此項(xiàng)最新研究首次對(duì)幼童進(jìn)行了智商測(cè)試。

    她說(shuō)，"學(xué)習(xí)音樂(lè)兒童的音樂(lè)視聽(tīng)能力上比未學(xué)音樂(lè)的兒童強(qiáng)，這并不奇怪。"

    "但從另一方面看，十分有趣的是，學(xué)習(xí)音樂(lè)的兒童在一般性記憶力等非音樂(lè)技能方面的提高，如讀寫(xiě)能力、語(yǔ)言記憶、視覺(jué)空間分析、數(shù)學(xué)、智商，比未學(xué)習(xí)音樂(lè)的兒童大。"