Summary: A new study finds that people with musical training are better at focusing on the right sounds in noisy environments. By measuring neural responses while participants attended to one of two simultaneous melodies, researchers observed stronger brain signals associated with conscious, goal-directed attention and weaker signals tied to automatic distraction in musically skilled individuals.
These findings indicate that music training may strengthen top-down attentional control while reducing susceptibility to bottom-up distraction. The results support the idea that musical practice could be used to support attention and cognitive control in everyday settings, although the research does not establish a direct causal link.
Key Facts
- Top-Down Advantage: Musically trained people show stronger capacity for deliberately directing attention in noisy settings.
- Reduced Distractions: They exhibit weaker neural responses to automatic, irrelevant sounds.
- Practical Potential: Music training could have applications in education and rehabilitation by helping improve attention and cognitive control.
Source: Karolinska Institute
Musical people find it easier to focus their attention on the right sounds in noisy environments.
This conclusion comes from a study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and published in the journal Science Advances. The team investigated how musical experience relates to the brain’s ability to selectively attend to one sound stream when multiple sounds occur together.
Focusing on a single conversation in a crowded, noisy room is a demanding task for the brain. To study how musical training affects this ability, researchers asked participants to listen to two simultaneous melodies that differed in pitch and to track pitch changes in a designated melody. Using a technique called frequency tagging, the team could separate the brain’s response to each melody and measure how attention influenced those responses.
The study used two experiments with separate participant groups. The researchers manipulated both conscious, goal-directed attention (top-down) and involuntary, stimulus-driven attention (bottom-up) while recording brain activity. Across both datasets, musical ability and task performance shaped how cortical regions were recruited during selective listening.
Results showed that individuals with higher musicality had amplified neural responses in areas associated with top-down attention and reduced responses in regions linked to bottom-up distraction. In particular, top-down effects correlated positively with activity in left parietal cortex, while bottom-up effects correlated negatively with activity in right parietal regions. Prefrontal areas also reflected better sustained selective attention in participants with greater musical skill and higher task accuracy.
Lead author Cassia Low Manting, a researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, notes: “Our findings indicate that music training not only refines auditory perception but also bolsters the brain’s capacity to maintain focused attention in distracting environments. This may have practical applications for educational programs and rehabilitation strategies that aim to improve attention and cognitive control.”
The authors emphasize that the study demonstrates strong associations between musicality and attentional mechanisms but does not prove causation. Further longitudinal and intervention studies are needed to determine whether music training directly produces the observed neural changes.
Methodologically, the research combined frequency tagging with machine learning to achieve precise separation of neural responses to overlapping sound streams. This approach allowed the team to classify neural activity according to selective attention toward individual melodies and to capture how musical skill and behavior influenced cortical recruitment and sustained attention over time.
The collaborative study involved researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Funding was provided by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. The researchers report no conflicts of interest.
About this music and attention research news
Author: Press Office
Source: Karolinska Institute
Contact: Press Office – Karolinska Institute
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access. “How musicality enhances top-down and bottom-up selective attention: Insights from precise separation of simultaneous neural responses” by Cassia Low Manting et al., published in Science Advances.
Abstract
How musicality enhances top-down and bottom-up selective attention: Insights from precise separation of simultaneous neural responses
Natural listening environments often contain multiple overlapping sounds. A central challenge in neuroscience is isolating neural signals tied to each sound source and analyzing them independently. By combining frequency tagging with machine learning, the researchers achieved high-precision separation of neural responses to mixed melodies and classified those responses according to selective attention toward specific streams.
Across two magnetoencephalography (MEG) datasets, individual musicality and behavioral performance strongly influenced how attentional processes engaged cortical regions. Top-down attention was positively associated with activity in left parietal cortex and negatively associated with bottom-up attention in the right parietal cortex. In prefrontal regions, neural markers of sustained selective attention reflected better performance and higher musicality.
These results suggest that musical training enhances frontoparietal neural mechanisms that support improved top-down attention, diminished bottom-up distractions, and more stable selective attention over time. The study also demonstrates the utility of combining frequency tagging with machine learning to capture stimulus-precise cognitive and behavioral effects, an approach that can be applied to other experiments involving simultaneous stimuli.