Findings from a controlled experiment suggest that musical training can lead to cognitive benefits that extend to nonmusical tasks. After eight weeks of musical rhythm training, older adults showed significant improvements in short-term memory on a facial recognition task. The study was published in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. When a person plays a musical instrument, their brain engages in all kinds of mental processes. A notable example is that playing music engages short-term memory, which helps musicians remember and maintain musical sequences. Unsurprisingly, studi…
