Musicians and people who are bilingual have long been shown to have a better working memory, and there are studies that identify why this might be so.
Working memory contains the information of which you are immediately aware. Information being “put into” memory is held in working memory; memories being remembered are held in working memory.
The capacity of working memory — how much information it can hold at one time — is severely limited.
Working memory governs your ability to comprehend what you are reading or hearing, your ability to learn new words, to plan and organize yourself, and much more.
In one brain imaging study, involving about half a hundred young adults aged 19-35, who were either monolingual non-musicians, monolingual musicians, or bilingual non-musicians, it was found that musicians and bilinguals needed fewer brain resources when remembering sounds.
Participants were asked to identify whether the sound they heard was the same type as the previous one, and if the sound came from the same direction as the previous one. Sounds from musical instruments, the environment and humans were among those used in the study.
Musicians remembered the type of sound faster than individuals in the other groups, and bilinguals and musicians performed better than monolinguals on the location task.
Although bilinguals remembered the sound at about the same level as monolingual non-musicians, their brains showed less activity when completing the task.
In both tasks and both levels of difficulty, musicians showed lower brain activity, which is thought to reflect better use of neural resources.
Bilinguals showed increased activity in language-related areas.
The findings demonstrate that musical training and bilingualism benefit main functioning and working memory via different activities and networks.
