英语听力文摘 English Digest 385、音乐可以帮助记忆（在线收听）

Music and Verbal Memory
音乐和非文字记忆

Even if you haven’t touched a piano in years, if you suffered through music lessons as a kid you may have benefited from those lessons in ways you wouldn’t expect. When you train on a musical instrument your brain is stimulated and changes and develops as a result. Because the parts of the brain are interconnected this stimulation doesn’t affect musical ability only.

Psychologists have discovered that the stimulation musical training enacts on the left temporal region of your brain enhances verbal memory. People with musical training are significantly better at recalling words from a list and learning new words. What’s more, the longer the duration of musical training, the better the verbal memory.

So while children who study music for two years demonstrate better verbal memory than children who have not studied music, children who continue to study music

continue to improve their verbal memory. The good news for those of us who trained on musical instruments but quit at some point is that we don’t seem to lose the verbal benefits we gain from this training.

Scientists are particularly interested in what this suggests about the interconnectedness of the brain and thus the predictability of the effects of stimulation to a brain area on cognitive functions located in that area. Further research may lead to developments in cognitive rehabilitation for people with brain injuries. For example, in order to rebuild verbal memory in patients with injury to that part of the brain, doctors may prescribe music lessons.

即使你已经很久没有弹钢琴，但只要你小时候学过钢琴，你就能在各个意想不到的方面受益于这些钢琴课。当你在训练一种乐器时，大脑受到刺激而变化生长。由于大脑的各个部分是相互连接的，这种刺激不会只影响到音乐能力。

心理学家还发现，这种音乐刺激训练担当大脑的左颞区可以提高非文字记忆。接受过音乐训练的人能够更容易记住单词，学习新的单词也更容易。更重要的是，音乐训练的时间越久，非文字记忆能力越强。

因此，学过两年音乐的孩子，他们的非文字记忆比没学过音乐的孩子要强得多，而继续学习音乐孩子的记忆会随之提高。有个好消息，对于那些学过乐器后来又放弃的同学，你们并不会失去这种训练的好处。

科学家们对大脑的这种相互连接特别感兴趣，从而预测音乐刺激对大脑认知能力的影响就在这个区域。进一步的研究可能导向对脑损伤病人在认知康复的发展。例如，为了重建病人大脑受损的非文字记忆部分，医生也许会开设音乐课。