As part of some health-related work I'm doing, I recently had to take a test which measures certain cognitive abilities. It involved a small hand-held device with a screen and two buttons, one on either side. On the screen were displayed one of two patterns; however, they were very similar. For one of the patterns, you were to push the button (either of the two, one for right-handed people, one for left-handed, presumably); for the other, you did not push any button. The images appeared on the screen for only a fraction of a second, so you had to be able to respond very quickly. They also flashed in quicker and quicker succession as the test went on. The test lasted 20 minutes.
Results were measured on two metrics. One was how many errors were made, meaning pushing the button when it shouldn't have been pushed, and vice versa. The other was your response time. The device measured your response time in hundredths of a second. It could also assess whether you got "bored" or weren't able to maintain your accuracy and speed throughout the 20 minutes.
On the morning I took this test I was feeling a bit tired and wasn't sure I would do my best. When the people administering the test compiled the results on the computer, they informed me that I had done "spectacularly" (their words). They said my response time was far better than average. (The score is based on your age group; I suspect that a 20-year-old who plays a lot of video games might have better response time than I do, at age 70.) In fact, they said my result was the best they had ever seen!
We discussed the results and they agreed that my high level was probably due to my training as a musician. As you've perhaps read, and heard me say in previous posts, learning to play a musical instrument, but especially piano, has powerful effects on the brain.
All I could say afterwards was "Thank goodness I'm a pianist!"
No comments:
Post a Comment