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 Music can help you pay attention
The cocktail party effect is not, as its name suggests, the term used to describe alcohol-induced lack of judgment. Rather, to the contrary, it is the term used to describe the auditory phenomenon by which we are able to focus on one conversation in a room full of conversations.
According to a research team from Stanford University’s School of Medicine, hints at the cause of the cocktail effect may lie in the music of eighteenth-century composer William Boyce. Brain images of people that listened to Boyce’s short symphonies showed that the music engaged two areas of the brain: the area that helps us pay attention and the area that allows us to make predictions and update events in our memory. However, when the music stopped, the brain did not.
The study examined the process of event segmentation, using eight symphonies with well-defined transitions between short movements—transitions spanning only a few seconds. According to the researchers, the brain used the short breaks to update working memories.
“Music engages the brain over a period of time, and the process of listening to music could be a way that the brain sharpens its ability to anticipate events and sustain attention,” stated Jonathan Berger, PhD, associate professor of music and co-author of the study.
Just don’t listen to the music too loud. The next time you’re in a crowded room you want to make sure you can actually hear what your brain is allowing you to pay attention to.
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