2022–2023 Music and Culture Lecture Series

“Aging and Music”

Benjamin Zendel (Memorial University)

Tuesday, September 13, 2022, 7:30PM

Age-related decline in hearing abilities is one of the most common health issues reported by older adults. Such hearing decline often leads to a difficulty understanding speech when there is background noise.  Interestingly, lifelong musicians exhibit slower rates of age-related decline on auditory processing tasks that rely on the brain, such as understanding speech when there is background noise. Longitudinal work, where music lessons were provided to older non-musicians, has shown that music training can be used to improve the ability to understand speech when there is background noise. Together, this suggests that music training improves central auditory processing abilities that tend to decline in older adults. Other lines of research have shown that the ability to perform music perception tasks, such as identifying an out-of-tune note, synchronizing with a rhythm, or perceptually segregating two simultaneous melodies are relatively preserved in older adults, despite the fact that these tasks rely on both hearing and cognitive abilities that are known to decline with age.  This line of work suggests that music perception is a “cognitive strength” in older adults and suggests that music could be used as a “cognitive scaffold” to help rehabilitate other aspects of hearing or cognition that decline with age. Overall, these two lines of research highlight that central aspects of hearing are malleable and suggest that music or music training may be useful to improve hearing for older adults.

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Location: MMaP Gallery

Date and Time: Tuesday, Sept. 13 at 07:30 PM - 09:30 PM (NDT)

For more information: https://www.mun.ca/mmap/mmap-events/lecture-series/

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