a new Canadian study shows young children who take music lessons have better memories than their nonmusical peers.

    Parents who spend time and money to teach their children music, take heart -- a new Canadian study shows young children who take music lessons have better memories than their nonmusical peers.

    The study, published in the online edition of the journal Brain, showed that after one year of musical training, children performed better in a memory test than those who did not take music classes.

    "(The research) tells us that if you take music lessons your brain is getting wired up differently than if you don't take music lessons," Laurel Trainor, professor of psychology, neuroscience and behavior at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, said.

    "This is the first study to show that brain responses in young, musically trained and untrained children change differently over the course of a year," said Trainor .

    Over a year they took four measurements in two groups of children aged between four and six -- those taking music lessons and those taking no musical training outside school -- and found developmental changes over periods as short as four months.

    The children completed a music test in which they were asked to discriminate between harmonies, rhythms and melodies, and a memory test in which they had to listen to a series of numbers, remember them and repeat them back.

    Trainor said while previous studies have shown that older children given music lessons had greater improvements in IQ scores than children given drama lessons, this is the first study to identify these effects in brain-based measurements in young children.

    She said it was not that surprising that children studying music improved in musical listening skills more than children not studying music.

    "On the other hand, it is very interesting that the children taking music lessons improved more on general memory skills that are correlated with nonmusical abilities such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing, mathematics and IQ," she said.

    那些花钱花时间让孩子学音乐的家长们可以放心了，加拿大的一项最新研究表明，上过音乐课的儿童比那些没上过音乐课的同龄儿童记忆力要好。

    这项研究结果在《大脑》杂志的网站上发表，研究发现，上过一年音乐课的儿童在一项记忆力测试中的表现比没有上过音乐课的儿童好。

    安大略省汉密尔顿市麦克马斯特大学研究心理学、神经系统科学和行为学的劳雷尔·特芮娜教授说："这项研究告诉我们，是否上音乐课会对大脑的发育产生不同影响。"

    特芮娜说："这项研究首次发现，受过音乐训练的儿童和未受过音乐训练的儿童的大脑反应在一年内发生了不同的变化。

    在一年的时间里，研究人员对两组4至6岁的儿童进行了四项测定，其中一组是在课外时间上音乐课的儿童，另一组是未上音乐课的儿童，研究发现，在短短的四个月内，这两组儿童的大脑发育都有所不同。

    参加此项研究的儿童接受了一项音乐测试和一项记忆力测试。在音乐测试中，研究人员要求这些儿童对和声、节奏和旋律进行鉴别；而在记忆力测试中，他们需要听一系列的数字，将它们记住，然后再把它们复述出来。

    特芮娜教授说，此前已有研究表明，在年龄稍大的儿童中，上过音乐课的儿童智商平均分比上过戏剧课的儿童进步得快。而此项最新研究首次对幼童进行了智商测试。

    她说，"学习音乐儿童的音乐视听能力上比未学音乐的儿童强，这并不奇怪。"

    "但从另一方面看，十分有趣的是，学习音乐的儿童在一般性记忆力等非音乐技能方面的提高，如读写能力、语言记忆、视觉空间分析、数学、智商，比未学习音乐的儿童大。"