Posted on: November 20, 2014
Difficulty hearing speech when in a noisy setting, such as a restaurant, is one of the biggest complaints of people with hearing loss. Hearing aids can help. However, noisy situations are still quite challenging. Want to more easily hear and understand speech in noisy settings. Try music!
Several recent studies have found that life long musicians have greater ability to understand speech in noisy situations than non-musicians. Musical training seems to enhance auditory working memory and temporal acuity. Both skills which may help a person pick out speech from background noise. So far most of these studies have looked at life long musicians. More work needs to be done to see if picking up music later in life has a similar effect. However, it can’t hurt to try, and it has the benefit of being a lot of fun.
So pick up that guitar, or any instrument that suits you. Your brain, and ears, may thank you!
Source: http://bit.ly/1xWV4NH