- Basal Ganglia
This area of the brain is enhanced in musicians in regards to musical perception. When listening to music, musicians are better at remembering more of the piece than non-musicians. (Smith 1997 qtd. Schellenberg, 2006)
- Broca’s Area
Musicians have tested better at reading ability than non musicians (Butzlaff, 2000; Hurwitz, Wolff, Bortnick, & Kokas, 1975 qtd. Schellenberg, 2006). This might be in part due to the fact that musicianship increases the understanding of building blocks of language. Musicians have an easier time expanding their vernacular as compared to non-musicians (Orsmond & Miller, 1999 qtd. Schellenberg, 2006).
- Frontal Lobe
Benefits associated with the frontal lobe are selective attention (Hurwitz et al., 1975; Orsmond & Miller, 1999 qtd. Schellenberg, 2006) and freedom from distractability (Schellenberg, 2006). Selective attention is the ability to prioritize focus of all the sensory information bombarding your body. For instance, you aren’t focusing on how the fabric of your clothes feel on your body (you most likely are now since I just brought attention to it). This sensory information is constantly bombarding your body, but humans can only efficiently focus on one thing at a time. Musicians have shown the ability to ignore background information and prioritize focus of important information more efficiently than non-musicians. Freedom from distractibility is a similar concept. When posed with distractions of an abrupt nature, musicians are better at staying on task or getting back on task quicker than non-musicians.
- Parietal Lobes
Advantages within the parietal lobe include increased spatial-temporal ability and increased perceptual organization. Spatial-temporal organization is the ability to construct something withing your minds eye. For instance, when playing a game of chess, you picture in your head what certain moves will do a few turns in advance, yet you don’t touch any of the pieces. You are building the game board several turns in advance in your head first and then carry it out. This is thanks to spatial-temporal ability, and musicians can go more in depth with concepts in their head than non-musicians (Hetland, 2000 qtd Schellnberg, 2006). Perceptual organization is the opposite. It is the ability to break down the construction of objects in your minds eye without effecting the object itself. Musicians outperform non-musicians in this ability (Schellenberg, 2006).
- Temporal Lobe
The temporal lobes of musicians are better at processing information regarding verbal memory and are better at picking up non-verbal ques. Verbal memory is the ability to remember information that was given aurally, specifically the words themselves. Musicians can remember the words in previous conversations with more accuracy than non-musicians (Brandler & Rammsayer, 2003 qtd Schellenberg, 2006). Non-verbal cues, such as body language, are more efficiently conveyed to musicians as compared to non-musicians (Forgeard et al., 2008 qtd. Pallesen et al., 2010).
- Corpus Callosum
The corpus callosum of musicians is larger in musicians than in non-musicians. This is an important fact because the corpus callosum contains much of the brains white matter tracts, which is used for communication with other areas of the brain. This larger space creates more room for white mater tracts and creates the ability to send more information at one time. (Schlaug, Ja¨ncke, Huang, Staiger, & Steinmetz, 1995 qtd. Patston, Hogg, & Tippett, 2007).
- Wernicke’s Area
Musicians are better at understanding subtle verbal cues as compared to non-musicians (Magne, Scho¨n, & Besson, 2006 qtd. Schellenberg 2006). This means that inflections given through speech are more likely to be picked up by musicians.