Improved effectiveness of performance monitoring in amateur instrumental musicians

New research finds musical training appears to sharpen our ability to detect our own mistakes, and rapidly make needed adjustments.

Playing a musical instrument might improve the ability to monitor our behavior and adjust our responses effectively when needed. As these processes are amongst the first to be affected by cognitive aging, our evidence could promote musical activity as a realistic intervention to slow or even prevent age-related decline in frontal cortex mediated executive functioning.