Summary: Absolute pitch, once thought to be an innate ability or only attainable through early childhood training, may be learnable in adulthood. Researchers trained 12 adult musicians in an eight-week…
Tag: auditory neuroscience
Ancient Ear Muscles Reactivate When We Struggle to Listen
Summary: Humans have vestigial ear muscles that once helped our ancestors focus on sounds. New research shows these muscles still activate when we strain to hear in noisy environments. Scientists…
How We Filter Out Background Sounds When Speaking
Summary: Researchers have traced how the brain filters out background noise during speech using signals between the motor and auditory cortices. These milliseconds-long electrical signals, called auditory corollary discharge, originate…
Unexpected Sounds Boost Dopamine, Leading to Riskier Decisions
Summary: A new study shows that unexpected sounds can cause dopamine bursts in the brain, which may lead to riskier decision-making. Researchers found that participants were 4% more likely to…
Manipulating Brain Waves During Sleep With Sound
Summary: Sound stimulation can manipulate brain waves during REM sleep, a stage crucial for memory and cognition. Using advanced technology, researchers were able to increase the frequency of brain oscillations…
Pitch Perfect: Singing Earworms Reveals Surprising Trait
Summary: Researchers discovered that nearly 45% of people sing earworms in perfect pitch, suggesting a hidden “perfect pitch” ability in the general population. Even without formal musical training, participants accurately…
Classical Music Synchronizes Brain Waves, Improving Depression
Summary: Western classical music can significantly affect brain activity, particularly in people with treatment-resistant depression. By measuring brainwaves and neural imaging, scientists discovered that music synchronizes neural oscillations between brain…
Childhood Vision Loss Affects Sound Distance Judgement
Summary: New research reveals that individuals who experience vision loss before age 10 struggle more with judging sound distance compared to those who lose sight later in life. This difficulty…
Supranormal Hearing Achieved by Boosting Ear Synapses
Summary: Researchers have enhanced auditory processing in young mice by increasing inner ear synapses using neurotrophin-3. This study supports the hypothesis that synapse density impacts hidden hearing loss in humans.…
Imperfect Harmony: Rethinking Pythagoras’ Musical Consonance
Summary: New research challenges Pythagoras’s ancient theory on musical consonance, revealing our preference for slight imperfections in chords rather than the perfect integer ratios traditionally associated with beautiful music. The…
