> > The headline makes it sound like learning music is about as useless as sitting on your couch, as far as intelligence goes.
> Isn't that kind of what the study says though? It specifically concludes:
> > Moreover, recent correlational studies have confirmed that music engagement is not associated with domain-general cognitive skills or academic performance.
> What I understand from this study is that whether you learn music or sit on your couch will have no difference on your cognitive abilities and only make you better at music if you do the former.
That's actually not quite clear to me, the article says:
>The authors found studies with high-quality design, such as those which used a group of active controls – children who did not learn music but instead learned a different skill, such as dance or sports, for example – showed no effect of music education on cognitive or academic performance.
That seems to indicate that siting on the couch is not the same. It also changes the title somewhat, to "learning music is not better than dance or sport to improve cognitive skills"
> Isn't that kind of what the study says though? It specifically concludes:
> > Moreover, recent correlational studies have confirmed that music engagement is not associated with domain-general cognitive skills or academic performance.
> What I understand from this study is that whether you learn music or sit on your couch will have no difference on your cognitive abilities and only make you better at music if you do the former.
That's actually not quite clear to me, the article says: >The authors found studies with high-quality design, such as those which used a group of active controls – children who did not learn music but instead learned a different skill, such as dance or sports, for example – showed no effect of music education on cognitive or academic performance.
That seems to indicate that siting on the couch is not the same. It also changes the title somewhat, to "learning music is not better than dance or sport to improve cognitive skills"