How do the Arts shape the mind?

Hi, what's an example of an interconnection between a musical structure and psychological development?

You are supposing that the arts actually do shape the mind. I'll drink to that; I think there is some proof. But let's define the arts very broadly, and include theater, film, video games, and Saturday morning children's television as "art". We'll include everything from the most degraded Muzak and rap music to Mozart and Rameau. Everything counts from Michelangelo to the frankly stupid pile of gravel in the gallery.

Let's start with language: Psychologists have shown that watching television (from which there is a continual stream of language) has little effect on children's linguistic development. What matters is language spoken by real, and significant, people--parents, siblings, caregivers. Music, on the other hand, doesn't have to be performed live to interest children, but if they are going to participate (through movement, or banging on a can) they have to actually do it. When children play, they frequently enact stories either from real life (let's play doctor) or in imitation of art (let's play cowboys and indians).

Very effective art, like a very compelling drama (live or via media), can heighten our sense of self-awareness, add to our self knowledge. Mediocre, shallow, poorly performed, drama might divert, bore, or annoy us, but it may not "shape" us in positive ways. Immersion in mediocre, shallow, poorly performed drama (the worst of television, video games, films, etc.) could reduce our self-awareness by providing nothing but false leads to self-understanding. Our minds are shaped, but not in a positive way.

Since people always seem to produce and listen to music, there must be a connection between music and mind, but... don't know what it is.

Music interacts with the body and causes an experience in the mind. The experience connects the music with the mind. Anything becomes connected with the mind by experience, and any experience may shape the mind.

Reply to jkop

I agree with you on this X-).

I think the very first music a child hears is its mother's or caregivers voice and that language is learnt as a song.

Quoting jkop

Music interacts with the body and causes an experience in the mind. The experience connects the music with the mind. Anything becomes connected with the mind by experience, and any experience may shape the mind.

On a neuroscientific level, there's a lot of evidence now about brain plasticity and the effects of music. Children with a musical education develop with startlingly different brains to the rest of us. I'm not disagreeing with the general point, just reinforcing it. I can imagine a Twin Earth where the twinlings regard speech and writing as merely a small subset of 'music', and wonder why we set so much store by a narrow range of sounds and marks on paper.

Reply to mcdoodle The alleged benefits of listening to Mozart, for instance, is a popular belief. But the music of Mozart is often or always considered good; we might as well include a good night's sleep, or a good tour in the mountains, for anything good tends to have beneficial effects. Children who often experience good tours in the mountains probably develop different brains too.

The claim that music, or certain structures in music, has beneficial effects on the mind seems self-fulfilling if it is assumed that the music is good (and simply false when the music is bad).

Quoting jkop

Children who often experience good tours in the mountains probably develop different brains too.

The claim that music, or certain structures in music, has beneficial effects on the mind seems self-fulfilling if it is assumed that the music is good (and simply false when the music is bad).

I daresay structuredness of one kind or another is usually helpful in an education. I was referring to very specific evidence that children with a concentrated musical education grow up with brains different from a control group. There is then a secondary debate to be had about whether this brain difference is 'beneficial'; there's certainly evidence that it has some other cognitive benefits. These include fine-motor skills, linguistic skills and the ability to integrate sensory information, not just the vague purported 'good' effects of popular wisdom about Mozart.

I think that's quite different from such occasional and relatively trivial events as 'good tours in the mountains'.