When a good song comes on the radio, it is often hard to resist nodding your head to the beat. Now, researchers have found that the accuracy with which we respond to a beat may determine how effectively ours brains respond to speech.
Researchers from Northwestern University, led by Professor Nina Kraus, say their findings suggest that musical training could potentially improve the brain's response to language.
For the study, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, the researchers analyzed the relationship between the ability to keep to a beat and the brain's response to sound in more than 100 teenagers.
The researchers say that it has been long known that moving to a steady beat requires synchronization between areas of the brain that are responsible for hearing and movement, but they wanted to investigate this further.
In the first of two experiments, the participants were required to listen and tap their finger along to a metronome - a device that produces regular, metrical beats.
The researchers monitored the participants' accuracy based on how closely in time their taps aligned with the beats of the metronome.
In the second experiment, the participants were required to listen to a synthesized speech sound of "da," which was repeated periodically for 30 minutes.
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