The historical Luddites were bands of English workers who destroyed textile machinery they believed threatened their jobs.

Modern historians and commentators emphasize that the Luddite movement was primarily a labour struggle about working conditions and poverty, not blanket opposition to technology or progress.

Contemporaries and later authors explain that Luddites targeted machines both symbolically and practically because those machines embodied ways owners transferred wealth from workers to employers.

Owners and governments responded to Luddite actions with deadly force and repressive laws, including sending troops and imposing capital punishment or transportation for breaking machines.

In twenty-first-century discourse the term 'luddite' is often applied online to people who express scepticism or resistance to AI and other new technologies.

Some technology proponents dismiss critics who raise questions about sustainability, social responsibility, tech ethics, or trust and safety as enemies of progress.

A central reason people resist new technologies today is fear of job loss and economic displacement caused by automation and AI.

Many critics also cite worries about concentrated corporate power, consolidated wealth, low regulation, and minimal consequences when technologies cause harm.

Some analysts argue that modern technology development is undemocratic and that large pools of venture capital let firms scale without adequately addressing harms to workers.

Specific concerns about AI named in contemporary commentary include loss of jobs, an explosion of misinformation, opportunities for abuse, and the risk of systems that exceed human understanding.

Public figures who warn about AI risks have in some cases been publicly criticised or given symbolic labels such as a 'Luddite Award' for their caution.

Psychological and generational factors matter, because commentators note a tendency for older people to be instinctively suspicious of innovations that arrive later in life.

Practical frustrations contribute to resistance when new technologies reduce repairability, increase opaque complexity, or leave people feeling powerless to control devices.

Framing techno-skepticism as simply backward can be a rhetorical move that diverts attention from legitimate political and economic questions about who benefits from new technologies.

Many 21st-century 'Luddites' resist new technologies because of labour and economic fears, worries about concentrated power and weak regulation, concerns about concrete harms from technologies like AI, and psychological or practical reactions to rapid change.

The historical Luddites were bands of English workers who destroyed textile machinery they believed threatened their jobs.

Title:

Content: You will not miss us!
8,008 followers
Why robots will take your job, and what to do - panic or rejoice
Why robots will take away your profession.
Increasingly, you can hear about the challenges posed by automation and cybernization to existing professions today.
And we are talking not only about unmanned vehicles and chatbots replacing call center operators, but also about programs that can calculate bank loans and insurance rates, depriving analysts and, moreover, neural networks that claim to compete with highly qualified and creative employees.
Exemption from routine or danger of unemployment?
A cause for concern or long-awaited freedom?
History of the problem
Mechanisms of ancient times.
Competition has always existed – professions disappeared and arose, people fought for jobs with each other and with technology, philosophers and economists built forecasts and tried to predict the prospects and are still doing it.
For example, you can assess how much automation threatens your profession and how quickly robots will replace you by using Will Robots Take My Job.
Aristotle was the first to think about the possibility of transferring “work ” to machines.
In the first book of his Politics, he suggested that they could evolve to such an extent that the need for human labor would disappear.
For him, quite in line with the views of work at the time, as something distracting from participation in public life and personal development, this was an extremely optimistic forecast.
“Work ” in ancient Greece was considered to be the lot of the lower classes, and the mechanisms would only liberate slaves, considered nothing but“ machines of flesh and blood. ”
The reorientation of the economy to the export of wool led to the introduction of a policy of “enclosures ”.
The real competition of a sufficiently large mass of people technology for the first time was only more than a millennium and a half later in England.
At first, the reorientation of the economy to wool exports led to the introduction of a policy of “fencing ”, in which landlords expelled farmers from the fields in order to free the territory for sheep grazing, which led to the first massive surge of“ unemployment ” – albeit not in the current sense.
The then arising vagrancy and poverty contemporary of these events, the Chancellor of England and philosopher Thomas More described the famous "sheep ate people."
However, after a few decades it became clear that no – not eaten.
The former peasants were absorbed by the growing cities, where they found a new job in textile manufactures, processing the same wool obtained from shearing sheep.
This was the first example of how, by taking away one thing, “technology ” is able to offer something different.
But we must admit: the process of urbanization was painful, the work that replaced the cultivation of land turned out to be hard and dirty, the gap with the traditional way of life was very traumatic, and the population of England as a result of hunger and the fight against vagrancy, which was conducted, including the use of gallows, decreased, according to some estimates by 30% (to understand the scale - the Soviet Union during the Second World War lost "only" 15% of the population).
Workers in a textile factory, late 18th century.
The next episode of the confrontation between people and technology occurred a century later in the same field of light industry - the invention in 1785 by Edmund Cartwright of a mechanical loom increased labor productivity forty times.
Jobs that had just been lost were once again lost.
But again temporarily – after spinning machines, others appeared and all of them demanded new resources, and their extraction – new types of labor.
Manufactures were replaced by factories, and muscle strength by the power of steam obtained from coal.
Machine Destroyers
The Luddite movement.
This time, the changes that occurred were met with bayonets - there was a movement of Luddites.
Sabotage of work and direct action: attacks on factories and the destruction of machines caused a harsh reaction of the state, which sent troops to suppress the “army of Ned Ludd ”.
It is characteristic that no one at the top bothered to convey to the workers the idea that there will still be work for them, even if not the one to which they had time to get used.
The fact is that the “top ” themselves at that time did not think too much about how all this was arranged, and people were perceived as expendable material, while the inertia of consciousness of ordinary workers who had just recovered from the transition from the agrarian to the urban way of life was also very high.
The First Industrial Revolution at the beginning of the 18th century.
The theoretical basis for the interaction of technological innovations and the masses of labor began to be summed up only by economists and philosophers of the middle of the XIX century.
They were the first to suggest that the disappearance of certain types of work in the process of technological development entails the emergence of new ones, and “work ” as a whole is not something final, which may be“ not enough ”.
The First Industrial Revolution was in full swing and the optimism of its apologists only grew stronger over time.
By the end of the century, it seemed that progress would eliminate not only social problems and contradictions, but could also rid humanity of wars.
However, while some spoke of the "Luddite delusion", others spoke of the "enslavement of the masses" and the need to hand over to the "factory workers", predicting that as long as the instruments of production are in the hands of the big proprietors, their employees will remain disenfranchised, and the lack of social security will cause explosions of unemployment at any moment.
Second wave
The Second Industrial Revolution.
The word “unemployment ” came into being at that time.
The fact is that a peasant working in the fields or a craftsman who provides for the needs of himself and the small surrounding community could not face something like this - he himself formed his employment.
When the scheme of selling labor on a strict schedule became mass within the framework of fulfilling a strictly regulated set of duties, the challenge arose to lose such an opportunity.
The Second Industrial Revolution was on the way.
The basics of streaming production were laid at the end of the 19th century, and by the beginning of the 20th century, the combination of Ford ’ s marketing strategy (he invented that the car was not an attribute of the elites, but a mass need) and the conveyor he introduced led to new changes that went beyond factories and factories.
On January 18, 1886, the first car invented by Karl Benz was released.
It was the emergence of technology on the streets of cities that brought a new wave of competition.
Look at the photos of the streets of the beginning of the last century: here they are dammed with carts, among which a lonely clumsy car is trying to maneuver, but ten years later, the only horse frightened by the roar of engines and sobbing of klaxons is clutching to the sidewalks.
Here it will be important to note how unpredictable this jump became: “At the beginning of the 20th century, the French Academy warned about an environmental disaster, which inevitably should lead to the accumulation of horse manure associated with the development of horse-drawn transport in Paris, ” recalls, reasoning about the prediction of the future Stanislav Lem.
However, note: in those regions where human labor is cheaper, technology can not replace it, as we are shown, for example, rickshaws, until recently used their own muscle power and only with a sharp drop in the cost of small vehicles motorized.
A more modern example is “computer rickshaws ” – hundreds of thousands of low-skilled Chinese, hacked captchas all day, because their work costs less than the introduction of scripts.
Technological unemployment
The line of the American unemployed during the Great Depression.
In the 1930s, Maynard Keynes, who gave the world the theory of the “social state ”, from the attempts of which many economies have not recovered so far, introduced the term“ technological unemployment ” into mass circulation.
Since then, the debate about whether the introduction of new technological solutions and opportunities can create a long-term job crisis or whether everything is limited to repurposing, when obsolete professions are replaced by new ones, and it is enough for people to change or improve their skills.
Until the end of the last decade, most experts were inclined to believe that “technological unemployment ” is always a temporary phenomenon, leading to the renewal and improvement of the professionalism of workers.
Mechanical labor was replaced by physical labor, the operator - a profession more status and highly paid than the worker, the reduction of costs leads to the release of time - these are the main theses sounded then.
Pessimistic views remained largely the domain of marginals, such as Theodore Kaczynski, famous for his terrorist struggle against progress under the name of Unabomber and primitive philosophers.
Pessimism
The first full-fledged computer in the USSR BESM-1.
Cautious voices expressing doubts about the correctness of this approach sounded even then.
And if in one of his speeches in 1962, President Kennedy said that “if people are able to invent new machines that take away their jobs, even more so are able to invent new jobs, ” then two years later, a letter from scientists and activists concerned with the problem of technological unemployment, sent to his successor, Lyndon Johnson, stated that“ a revolution in cybernetics will create a separate nation of poor, unskilled unemployed. ”.
Theorists disputed the impossibility of long-term unemployment, as did Martin Ford in the book “Light in the Tunnel: Automation, Acceleration of Technology and the Economy of the Future ” or Marshall Brains in“ Robotic Nation ”.
Gasne-Peter Martin and Harald Schumann, in their Global Trap, describe a society in which the labor of twenty percent of the population is enough for the world economy to continue to develop.
There are those who see it as a threat and a danger, like Paul Krugmann in his article “Sympathy for the Luddites ” or Frey and Osborne in“ The Future of Work. ”
In addition, in practice, it turned out that technology is not so freeing up time – for example, representatives of professions requiring high qualifications, at least in the United States today work more than 30 years ago, and technologies that provide remote access to working tools allow them not to break away from professional tasks and in their “free time ”.
It is also important that new jobs, as it was noticed at the beginning of the XXI century, are created not so much by technology as by the change in the way of life that they entail.
So in the mid-2010s, nine out of ten working people are employed in professions that did not exist a century earlier, but only 5% of the jobs that appeared from 1993 to 2013 are in high-tech areas, such as IT or telecom.
However, the question is whether this does not mean that indirectly they still arise due to technologies that provide an opportunity for development for the service sector.
Is it bad?
A shot from the film "I, Robot" (2004).
Harvard economics professor Lawrence Summers, who previously served as U.S. Treasury Secretary, said in 2014 that he no longer believes that automation will always create new jobs and that it is not some hypothetical possibility in the future; it is something that is emerging now.
In his opinion, the changes will be very global and will lead to mass unemployment not only among low-skilled employees, but also for “blue ” and“ white ” collar workers, because “there are many reasons to think that the software revolution will be even more significant than the agrarian one. ”
The robot prepares food.
However, this is what allows us to look to the future with optimism.
Summers ’ s thought of the meaning of the digital revolution echoes the position of futurologist Alvin Toffler.
As early as 1970, in his book Future Shock, he wrote that by comparing the Digital Revolution with the Industrial Revolution, we downplay its significance and it would be more correct to draw a parallel with the exit of mankind from caves and the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and cattle breeding.
Potentially, this means that humanity is on the verge of an unprecedented, unknown written history civilizational leap of colossal proportions.
And, due to the fact that the speed of changes in the world has increased many times and now, the fact that in the case of the end of the Stone Age, took millennia, is being carried out in front of one, a maximum of a couple or three generations, this breakthrough, of course, will be painful.
However, having reviewed the usual way of life, the attitude to it and their values, will not humanity be able to break through to the conditions of life, previously even unimaginable.
"Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991).
We are easily accustomed to such changes in “work ” as freelancing and remote work, quite calmly came to a repeated change of professions, instead of a continuous, decades-long“ career ” and even were able to include them in your life, saying that this is the way to find yourself.
So is it not time to begin to accustom ourselves to the idea that, as economic historian Robert Skidelsky said, “Sooner or later we will run out of work ”?
After all, freelancing and remote employment are about freedom, about leaving the “office slavery ” and searching for the way of life that is convenient for us.
Yes, to get used to the idea that the traditional “work ” is over and now we will have to independently invent what to occupy ourselves will not be easy.
It will require responsibility, but it is freedom.
Isn ’ t it time for us, joyfully exclaiming “Glory to the robots! ”, to go in search of our place in the new world?
Why robots will take away your profession.
The fact that it is not only about robots, but also about the “work ” itself and the possibility of life without it, about the risks associated with negative scenarios of confrontation between people and machines and the possibilities of overcoming them, we will talk in the next parts of the cycle.
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Title:

Content: The new is the old well forgotten.
Where in the Network there was a fashionable insult to the opponents of AI
In the Internet discourse, deep in the study of sarcastic comments of anonymous persons, you can find the term "Luddite".
This label is often referred to as people who dare to express the slightest inclination to inhibit the constant development of artificial intelligence (AI).
Related video
Interestingly, such prominent figures as Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates have been awarded the Luddite Award, which is recognition of their cautionary position regarding the potential dangers associated with artificial intelligence.
During the ceremony, Robert D. Atkinson, the organizer of the award, noted: “Unfortunately, luminaries such as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have contributed to the feverish refraction of hands about the impending apocalypse of artificial intelligence, ” writes IFLScience.
In Focus.Technology appeared its own Telegram-channel.
Subscribe not to miss the latest and exciting news from the world of science!
Atkinson also explained: "Do we consider any of them personally Luddites?
No, of course not.
They are pioneers of science and technology.
But they and others have done a disservice to the public — and undoubtedly have helped and comforted the increasingly common neo-Luddist impulse in modern society — by demonizing AI in the popular imagination.
But how did the term come about?
Its roots can be traced back to the early 1800s in England.
Before the industrial revolution, skilled craftsmen who knew a lot about textile production made clothes using their own machines and specialized tools.
However, a situation arose when new technologies and methods of mass production appeared, as a result of which artisans were unable to compete.
The result was a movement whose purpose was the destruction of the textile industry and the destruction of new machines.
Although there is some truth to this story, it does not reflect the whole essence of the Luddite movement.
Their actions were not driven solely by a reaction to new technologies; rather, they were a response to the profound transformations taking place in their professional activities.
While it is true that they often attacked a knitting machine known as a stocking frame, as well as other mechanized fixtures, their main concern was the labor practices associated with these machines.
Kevin Binfield, editor of the Luddite and Compassionate Works, explained their motives: "They simply wanted machines to produce high-quality goods, and that these machines employed workers who had been trained and received fair wages.
It was their only concern. ”
The nickname "Luddites" comes from the nickname "Ned Ludd", an apocryphal figure who allegedly sabotaged a textile factory in 1779, although historical evidence suggests that this man was most likely a fictional one.
In a 2007 paper, researcher David Linton explained: “Some say that a young man, possibly with cognitive impairment, named Ned Ludd once misunderstood an order and accidentally broke his frame machine.
Others argue that this was done deliberately, in a fit of anger.
Whatever the motive, it seems to have become a joke phrase that whenever the machine breaks, for whatever reason, you can say something like, "Ludd must have been here."
From this construction, it is a short step to the ironic application of the name Ludd to vandalism for political purposes. "
Between 1811 and 1816, the Luddite movement held sporadic and somewhat unorganized protests, characterized by the destruction of cars and the burning of factories.
In response, the mill owners resorted to extreme measures, using deadly force against the Luddites.
In April 1812, there was a grim turning point in Huddersfield, where at least four people died at the hands of the mill owners.
In retaliation, the Luddites killed the owner of the mill, William Horsfall, who boldly declared his intention to "smear himself with Luddite blood to the saddles."
Horsfall was shot while sitting on his horse.
Faced with these uprisings, the government immediately sent thousands of soldiers to quell the protests.
Moreover, they adopted a law according to which the breakdown of cars was subject to the death penalty or sending to colonies.
Subsequently, the movement dissipated, but the stable expression "Luddite" could not accurately convey the ideals and goals of the Luddites.
Previously, Focus wrote about the first IPSO in the history of mankind.
It turns out that it was invented in Babylon and it concerns the Flood.

Modern historians and commentators emphasize that the Luddite movement was primarily a labour struggle about working conditions and poverty, not blanket opposition to technology or progress.

Title:

Content: Brian Merchant, author: “Luddites are more dangerous to the rich than Robin Hood”

The Luddites have been a great historical resource. Any showy enemy of anything that looked like technological progress has been called a Luddite. Today with generative artificial intelligence and its critics, the word has been revived. The author and journalist Brian Merchant (Iowa City, USA, 1983) saw it coming and has written a book that reviews the Luddite revolt in England at the beginning of the 19th century and its similarities with current technologies: Blood in the Machine (Blood in the Machine, currently without a planned edition in Spanish) thus explores the origins of the current revolt against big technology.

Although the book has appeared in the midst of the AI hype, Merchant began his research a decade ago: “Uber was growing and it was beginning to be seen that it was having a hard impact on taxi drivers, I heard the term Luddite from the pro-Uber sector and wrote an article titled You don't understand anything about Luddites”. Now in his book he remembers that the Luddite revolt was a labor struggle, not anti-technology, at a time when unions were prohibited. In a conversation with EL PAÍS from his residence in Los Angeles, Merchant clarifies the historical impact of the Luddites and the possible similar struggles that are being played today in Silicon Valley.

1. The Luddites were not against progress

The labor revolt over the loss of rights was more important than the destruction of textile machines: “The biggest mistake about the Luddites is to say that they were against technology and progress,” says Merchant. “They were against certain technologies because they recognized the way in which they were going to be used in their context against them as workers. It was a labor movement, against poverty, not anti-technology. The British Government began to mold them in this way almost immediately, it was keen to mock the Luddites and present the argument that they were against progress. It is very similar to how today people in positions of power in technology companies accuse those who complain about poor working conditions. It's the same story for 200 years.”

The book quotes a phrase from historian Eric Hobsbawm that explains this stage: “It was collective bargaining through riots.” According to Merchant, this tactic in a workers' struggle was very powerful for two reasons: “First, it was symbolic because everyone understood that what they were destroying was not just a machine. It was also the specific machine used to transfer wealth from the workers to the employer. Second, it was useful because they destroyed the equipment that businessmen needed.”

2. Why Robin Hood is better accepted than Ned Ludd

Ned Ludd was a legendary character. No one knows for sure if he existed. It was the legend of a teenager who would have broken the first machines at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In 1811, rebellious workers used his legendary name to sign letters and further scare: “Ludd probably never existed. But the incarnation of it would become a mascot, an organizational tool, a wink: a powerful 19th-century meme,” Merchant writes.

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Ludd lived near Nottingham (United Kingdom), like another legendary figure who has been better treated by history. There must be a reason, says Merchant: “The Luddites organized a popular and powerful rebellion. People wrote popular songs about them. They were like Robin Hood. But it is interesting that Robin Hood has endured as a positive light, while the Luddites have not. He suggests that the myth of Ned Ludd is in some ways more dangerous to the elites and the wealthy than that of Robin Hood, which is a little more nebulous and open. The Luddites say: go ahead and break the machines of your oppression. Robin Hood says: steal from the rich and give to the poor. “I think that’s a little more tolerable.”

3. How are they similar to today's problems?

The background of the book is that the history of the Luddites is similar to what happens today in Silicon Valley, where a small group of corporations dominate new technologies. “The way technologies are developed has basically not changed. You have a handful of people with access to enough capital or political influence to be able to build a factory and use automation technologies. “Back then, the most aggressive owners didn’t ask anyone how to find a way to make this a win-win.”

Merchant has received criticism for equating the great businessmen of 19th century England with 21st century America. But there are details that he does not see that far away: “The technology development process is in some ways even more undemocratic today than then. There is this immense pool of capital available to Silicon Valley innovators through venture capital. Uber wasn't profitable for 10 years, but they had access to that capital. Did anyone really like that? Did it work for workers and delivery people? Nothing mattered, they just had more money and moved on.”

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Contemporaries and later authors explain that Luddites targeted machines both symbolically and practically because those machines embodied ways owners transferred wealth from workers to employers.

Owners and governments responded to Luddite actions with deadly force and repressive laws, including sending troops and imposing capital punishment or transportation for breaking machines.

In twenty-first-century discourse the term 'luddite' is often applied online to people who express scepticism or resistance to AI and other new technologies.

Some technology proponents dismiss critics who raise questions about sustainability, social responsibility, tech ethics, or trust and safety as enemies of progress.

Title:

Content: Hey tech billionaires, if you want to talk about radical change, let’s abolish venture capitalism

 / Source: GuardianAus

The future that technology elites like to imagine looks remarkably similar to the one we’re in

‘Any meaningful, progressive – and dare I say, hopeful – view of the future of technology must be willing to engage with its politics, history and consequences.’‘Any meaningful, progressive – and dare I say, hopeful – view of the future of technology must be willing to engage with its politics, history and consequences.’Do you support sustainability, social responsibility, tech ethics, or trust and safety? Congratulations, you’re an enemy of progress.

Andreessen lambasts academia for being “disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable – playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences”. I have never read a more apt description of Big Tech.

So why should we give this manifesto any time of day? As the co-founder of one of the world’s biggest venture capital firms, Andreessen holds significant power. And he’s far from alone in his thinking – the manifesto offers a glimpse into the belief systems of many tech billionaires. Echoes can be heard of Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous former motto:Tech elites like to cast themselves as radical revolutionaries. But we find ourselves in a relentless cycle of sameness. headtopics.com

Concealed within the rhetoric of tech progress is preservation of the status quo. The future that tech elites imagine looks remarkably similar to the one we’re in: unchecked power, consolidated wealth, low regulation and minimal consequences when technology proves to be harmful. If we want to talk about

It serves tech billionaires well to make it seem as though social progress is intrinsically linked to tech development. They cast themselves as our; here to save humanity provided they retain the power, capital and market dominance to do so. Anyone who dares get in the way is dismissed as backwards or ignorant. This mischaracterisation goes at least as far back as the early 1800s and the Luddite uprising. headtopics.com

Then as now, when elites misrepresent techno-scepticism as dangerous or backwards, they are trying to direct attention away from rational concerns about manifestations of power and profit.The brand of optimism wielded by prominent tech industry figures weaponises hope for a better future. It asks us to shy away from the political realities of technology as it stands in favour of a libertarian fantasy (or nightmare).

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A central reason people resist new technologies today is fear of job loss and economic displacement caused by automation and AI.

Title:

Content: DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Clock is ticking on PM's inflation target

Anyone opening the Office for National Statistics' inflation report yesterday would have felt a sinking sense of deja vu.

For the second month in a row, consumer prices defied the optimism of most economists and, instead of tumbling into single figures, stayed above 10 per cent.

The slight fall in the rate of inflation was, of course, a modicum of good news – easing the pressure on household budgets.

But with interest rates predicted to reach 5 per cent as the Bank of England tries to cool unexpectedly stubborn inflation, it will hit mortgage holders and businesses who face higher borrowing charges.

(But don't expect the grasping high street banks to pass on rate rises to poor savers!)

(File Photo) Interest rates are predicted to reach 5 per cent as the Bank of England tries to cool unexpectedly stubborn inflation

With more ambulance workers and hospital staff set to announce strikes, the public sector must be told in no uncertain terms that pay rises must be earned, which means working harder.

Ministers must not capitulate to the unions' ruinous demands. That would embolden their extremism and risk a 1970s-style wage-price spiral.

While persistently high inflation is partly down to rising food prices, it is also due to Britain's hugely inflated energy costs.

We are over-reliant on imported fuel and while it was politically expedient for Rishi Sunak to spike Labour's guns by imposing a harsher windfall tax on oil and gas giants' profits, this has simply dissuaded those firms from exploiting the vast reserves we have under the North Sea.

The PM has staked his reputation on halving inflation by the end of the year. With the clock ticking, he must pull all the levers at his disposal to hit that goal.

March of the machines

Should we fear the march of the machines? Every major technological advance throughout history, whether it be the invention of the printing press or the splitting of the atom, has prompted a mixture of wonder and dread.

The jury is still out on how concerned humanity should be about the latest industrial revolution – artificial intelligence. AI, which enables computers to make decisions in a more 'human' way, could revolutionise the world of work, learning and healthcare – improving people's lives.

All undoubtedly exciting. But there are potential downsides too: Loss of jobs, an explosion of democracy-damaging fake news, opportunists abusing the technology to expose the public to loss and danger.

And while it may sound the stuff of lurid science fiction, can we be certain AI will not just emulate humans, but outwit them?

Even tech sector luminaries – including Tesla boss Elon Musk – have issued blood-curdling warnings about the rapid development of ever-more powerful artificial minds that even their creators don't properly understand.

They propose halting research. But this would allow malign nations such as China to take the lead on this epoch-defining technology.

Britain should convene a Cop-style international summit of sensible, freedom-loving governments on AI. By setting early rules, its benefits could be mined and every effort made to ensure this is done safely.

Our role must be to help shape this brave new world responsibly; trying to hold it back is futile.

Don't spoil King's day

For more than half a century, King Charles has been an outspoken climate activist, advocating a complete transition from fossil fuels – even before it became a fashionable cause.

So why are Just Stop Oil protesters even thinking about disrupting the coronation of a monarch who preached green virtues long before many of them were born?

The conclusion is obvious: Their imbecilic stunts have nothing to do with saving the planet – and all to do with seeking attention and spoiling the special day for millions.

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Clock is ticking on PM's inflation target

No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards.

Many critics also cite worries about concentrated corporate power, consolidated wealth, low regulation, and minimal consequences when technologies cause harm.

Some analysts argue that modern technology development is undemocratic and that large pools of venture capital let firms scale without adequately addressing harms to workers.

Specific concerns about AI named in contemporary commentary include loss of jobs, an explosion of misinformation, opportunities for abuse, and the risk of systems that exceed human understanding.

Public figures who warn about AI risks have in some cases been publicly criticised or given symbolic labels such as a 'Luddite Award' for their caution.

Psychological and generational factors matter, because commentators note a tendency for older people to be instinctively suspicious of innovations that arrive later in life.

Title:

Content: USB-C PD: New Technology Done Right

There is a tendency as we get older, to retreat into an instinctive suspicion of anything new or associated with young people. All of us will know older people who have fallen down this rabbit hole, and certainly anything to do with technological advancement is often high on their list of ills which beset society. There’s a Douglas Adams passage which sums it up nicely:

“I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

Here at Hackaday we’re just like anybody else, in that we all get older. Our lives are devoted to an insatiable appetite for new technology, but are we susceptible to the same trap, and could we see something as against the antural order of things simply because we don’t like it? It’s something that has been on my mind in some way since I wrote a piece back in 2020 railing at the ridiculous overuse of new technologies to limit the lifespan and repairability of new cars and then a manifesto for how the industry might fix it, am I railing against it simply because I can’t fix it with a screwdriver in the way I could my 1960 Triumph Herald? I don’t think so, and to demonstrate why I’d like to talk about another piece of complex new technology that has got everything right.

In 2017 I lamented the lack of a universal low voltage DC power socket that was useful, but reading the piece here in 2024 it’s very obvious that in the years since my quest has been solved. USB Power Delivery was a standard back then, but hadn’t made the jump to the ubiquity the USB-C-based power plug and socket enjoys today. Most laptops still had proprietary barrel jack connectors, and there were still plenty of phones with micro-USB sockets. In the years since it’s become the go-to power standard, and there are a huge number of modules and devices to supply and receive it at pretty high power.

At first sight though, it might seem as though USB-PD is simply putting a piece of unnecessary technology in the way of what should be a simple DC connector. Each and every USB-PD connection requires some kind of chip to manage it, to negotiate the connection, and to transform voltage. Isn’t that the same as the cars, using extra technology merely for the sake of complexity? On the face of it you might think so, but the beauty lies in it being a universally accepted standard. If car manufacturers needed the same functionalty you’d have modules doing similar things in a Toyota, a Ford, or a Renault, but they would all be proprietary and they’d be eye-wateringly expensive to replace. Meanwhile USB-PD modules have to work with each other, so they have become a universal component available for not a huge cost. I have several bags of assorted modules in a box of parts here, and no doubt you do too. The significant complexity of the USB-PD endpoint doesn’t matter any more, because should it break then replacing it is an easy and cheap process.

This is not to say that USB-PD is without its problems though, the plethora of different cable standards is its Achilies’ heel. But if you’re every accused of a knee-jerk reaction to a bad piece of new technology simply because it’s new, point them to it as perhaps the perfect example of the responsible use of new technology.

Practical frustrations contribute to resistance when new technologies reduce repairability, increase opaque complexity, or leave people feeling powerless to control devices.

Framing techno-skepticism as simply backward can be a rhetorical move that diverts attention from legitimate political and economic questions about who benefits from new technologies.

Many 21st-century 'Luddites' resist new technologies because of labour and economic fears, worries about concentrated power and weak regulation, concerns about concrete harms from technologies like AI, and psychological or practical reactions to rapid change.


The 'Mozart Effect' is the idea that listening to Mozart's music can temporarily improve cognitive performance, especially spatial reasoning.

Evidence in the provided documents is mixed and not universal.

The MEM-COG study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease reported that background classical music neither improved nor impaired learning in people with mild cognitive impairment.

That study also found that more 'high-arousal' music could help people who habitually use music as an emotional regulator.

Other research and reviews link active music engagement, particularly playing an instrument such as the piano, with improved memory, executive function, and brain plasticity in older adults.

A 2023 NeuroImage: Reports paper referenced in the review reported that practicing and listening to music can stimulate grey matter and enhance cognitive reserve.

Neuroscience research shows that pleasurable music can activate reward circuitry (including the nucleus accumbens) and support learning through reward prediction mechanisms.

Practical implications from these sources are that background classical music is not guaranteed to boost learning for all students and that effects depend on music type and individual differences.

Several articles recommend using instrumental, familiar, and appropriately arousing music and testing effects individually in real settings.

Summary: Based on the provided documents, evidence for a Mozart Effect is mixed—some studies and reviews associate musical training or certain music-listening habits with cognitive benefits, but controlled studies in people with mild cognitive impairment found no universal short-term benefit from background classical music, so classroom use should be tested and individualized.

The 'Mozart Effect' is the idea that listening to Mozart's music can temporarily improve cognitive performance, especially spatial reasoning.

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Inicio » English » Inspiration » The Sound of Success: Ideas in Music for Concentration and Productivity

The Sound of Success: Ideas in Music for Concentration and Productivity

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Does music help you concentrate? Since we spend a lot of time in front of computers trying to finish our work, wouldn’t it be nice to listen to some of music to help concentrate? Well, music lovers, it seems like Mozart and Beethoven could actually help you with your productivity. Beethoven once said: «Music is where the spirit lives, thinks and invents.»

This relationship between music and the brain is an area that has been intensively explored in research. Many studies point to the ability of music to help employees be more productive and help children in their learning process more effectively. University research in France found that students who listened to music for an hour while reading, scored significantly higher on a questionnaire compared to a group of students who read without music.

Your attention span is better when listening to music

It seems that music for concentration puts students in a heightened emotional state, so that they can be more receptive to information. «It is possible that music causes a change in the learning environment and influenced students’ motivation to stay focused while reading, which led to better performance on a multiple-choice questionnaire,» concluded the french research team in a recent article.

But before you start playing any type, you have to find the music that works better for the type of work you are trying to carry do. For example, the classic from the Baroque period is said to do wonders for brain activity when you are studying or writing. But not all classical music is created equal, so dramatic changes and complicated fugue changes may not be as conducive as a smooth piano piece. So if you have to choose a composer, we would say Mozart. There seems to be evidence that Mozart’s improves mental performance: it is called «The Mozart Effect”.

Build a harmonious space

If you don’t like classical, the discreet sound found in ambient music may work well for you instead. What is the purpose of this if you are not at the airport, you ask? Well, for creative purposes, it’s better than emptiness and silence. According to one of its pioneers, musician Brian Eno: “Background music must be able to accommodate many levels of attention when listening, without forcing one in particular. It must be as ignorable as it is interesting ”.

In fact, researchers have shown that a moderate level of noise, such as that found in the environment, can actually get creative juices flowing. Music with especially low-lows or especially high-highs should be avoided. Certain types of jazz instrumental melodies can also get your brain working.

Music without lyrics

In general, if you are doing work that requires writing, you should avoid listening to music with lyrics as the words in a song are especially destructive to your concentration. Since hearing words activates the brain’s language center, attempting to perform tasks related to another language would be like trying to have a conversation while someone else is speaking to you. But, if you are a cartoonist, and you don’t deal with sentence construction, hearing letters may not have the same effect.

Finally, studies show that listening to music you’re already familiar with may be better if you really need to focus. New songs take you into the unknown and your brain will want to listen closely to see what comes next. With the music you are familiar with you know what to expect, so it doesn’t distract you from your work. And if you like the tune you’re listening to try not to whistle it while you work, as that will only distract you.

The post The Sound of Success: Ideas in Music for Concentration and Productivity appeared first on Mundo Hispanico

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The doctor ’ s words / When the mentally retarded person meets the familiar sound
In 2023, an estimated 6.7 million Americans aged 65 and older have Alzheimer ’ s disease.
Dementia in the elderly is an incurable disease. It is easy for patients to become isolated, because they will feel isolated and helpless about their own uselessness, and they are used to being alone in order to avoid embarrassment.
In the latter stages, they often lose the ability to communicate with people around them.
It is very painful for the patients themselves and the caregivers and family members who care for them.
In recent years, it has been found that music therapy can intervene and make up for this lack of progress.
It also increases the patient ’ s engagement with the surrounding environment and reduces many neurological symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, and unexplained tantrums.
In other words, when people with dementia are unable to connect with their loved ones, that is, when they are unable to speak their language, music is the last bridge to interact with each other.
Q1: Do people with dementia have special feelings about music?
A1: According to nearly a decade of research by the Department of Neurology at Northwestern University, it has been found that even though people with dementia lose language and other memories, memories related to music often remain in the brain.
This is because areas of the brain involved in musical memory (e.g., the cerebellum) are not affected until late in the disease process.
Familiar music can help people with dementia recover certain aspects of their memory, make them feel calm, and greatly improve their mood.
Q2: Why do people with dementia remember their favorite songs?
A2: Although suffering from severe dementia, it means that a person has very little memory of their past.
Even if you can ’ t remember your son ’ s name, familiar songs that you ’ ve heard and sung will always come to mind.
Q3: In addition to music, is listening to the radio good for elderly people with dementia?
A3: In fact, the radio can not only provide good music, but also play emotional dialogue, which can truly relieve the loneliness of the dementia patient and bring comfort and peace.
Q4: How do people with dementia react to music?
A4: According to the research of clinical psychiatrists, it is found that people with dementia who are generally slow to respond to music, especially to their favorite music.
Hearing a familiar concert naturally shows a pleasant response, such as smiling or moving your body or even starting to dance.
And it seems to produce a unique and powerful stimulus response to familiar music that awakens the patient ’ s past personal and social connections.
In theory, if music can evoke memories, it may also help patients evoke other memories or related memories of that period.
In several studies, it has been consistently found that music tends to evoke more positive and positive memories from life than other clues.
Q5: Can music also prevent cognitive decline?
A5: Playing and listening to music can help slow the decline of cognitive function in older adults, according to a new study in Medical Journal Today.
Active note vibrations increase gray matter in certain areas of the brain and increase the plasticity of brain cells. Although music does not reverse or prevent brain cell shrinkage due to aging, it can slow cognitive decline.
Q6: What kind of music is most helpful?
A6: Studies have proved that classical music is the best choice.
The International Institute of Science calls this phenomenon the "Mozart effect."
It is recommended to listen to classical music such as Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and other famous composers.
Classical music seems to move the brain more easily than other music, is best suited for concentration, and is more able to produce substantial effects in absorbing new information.
Q7: Do musicians suffer from dementia?
A7: According to the International Institute of Science, a study of twins reported that musicians have a 64% lower risk of developing mild cognitive impairment or dementia.
The analysis of two other studies found that musicians had an average 59% lower risk of dementia.
Training and performance, which can be attributed to music, stimulates the brain and improves its ability to respond to the outside world.
Q8: Which organ is most stimulated by music?
A8: Although most activities such as visual art, computing, and language are mainly only half of the brain.
But music is one of the few that can pass through the auditory nerve and stimulate neurons on both sides of the brain at the same time.
Q9: How does music react in the brain?
A9: Music can promote the production of hormones dopamine and serotonin in the brain.
These are neurotransmitters that increase the sense of pleasure and ease.
There is also the so-called love hormone - oxytocin.
At the same time, research evidence shows that music can help reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol, instantly relieving feelings of anxiety and depression.
Q10: How long does the music last?
A10: It ’ s a concern that in people with dementia, music can improve mood, behavior, and in some cases cognitive function, which, according to the Clinical Psychiatric Society, lasts for hours or even days after the music stops.
Q11: Can people without dementia benefit from music?
A11: A recent study suggests that playing an instrument and actively listening to music can help slow cognitive decline in people aged 62-78.
This study once again determined that musical activity increases the gray matter in many areas of the brain. Gray matter is an essential nerve tissue in the brain and spinal cord.
In particular, it plays an important role in psychology, memory, mood and movement. The increase in gray matter also increases the plasticity of the brain ’ s nerves – the brain ’ s ability to reconnect itself, which is important for learning cognition and memory preservation.
In addition to actively playing music, the 2023 study also showed that long-term music training, regardless of the age of the participants, can bring potential functional benefits to the brain and help keep the brain young and slow down aging.
(The author is a practicing physician in the Greater Washington area)
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Evidence in the provided documents is mixed and not universal.

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Content: 4/25/23 · Research

The beneficial effects of music on memory may depend on how it is listened to

The initial results of the study of the 'Mozart effect' on neurodegeneration show that listening to classical music in the background has no benefits for learning
The research has been carried out with people experiencing mild cognitive impairment, and it did find individual differences when listening to 'high-arousal' music

Listening to 'high-arousal' music could have a positive effect on memory for people who are accustomed to using music as an emotional regulator (Image: Clem Onojeghuo, Unsplash)

Given the lack of effective treatments to counteract cognitive impairment, background music has traditionally been proposed as a possible therapeutic alternative for improving memory-related tasks. Its effect has long been the focus of debate, but this relationship has now been found to be possibly determined by new interindividual parameters, which means that it may be more complex than was previously thought. This is shown by research led by Marco Calabria, a researcher in the Cognitive Neurolab group of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), who is now considering new experiments.

The initial results of the Mozart effect and memory in patients with cognitive impairment (MEM-COG) study, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, suggest that listening to background classical music while performing memory tasks neither improves nor impairs learning levels among people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). However, listening to more 'high-arousal' music was found to have a possible positive effect on people who are accustomed to using music as an emotional regulator in their everyday lives, which suggests there is potential for further hypotheses and research.

The study, which has been published as open access in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, was carried out with patients at the neuropsychology unit of Barcelona's Hospital de Sant Pau, and involved researchers at the hospital, Montreal's Concordia University and Madrid's Gregorio Marañón Health Research Institute.

There is no universal effect

"We found no general impact concerning the effect of music in terms of whether it had positive or negative effects on learning in cases of MCI, but we did find that it would be modulated for each individual. If people regularly use music as an emotional regulator in their daily life, such as to help them remain calm or for company, they will find it easier to obtain further benefits from music when they have to learn something new," explained Calabria, who has a PhD in Psychobiology.

The subjects of the study were people with mild amnestic cognitive impairment, i.e. they have memory problems as a result of an onset of neurodegeneration that is more specific in the parts of the brain dealing with aspects of learning and memory. The experiments consisted of observing 24 photographs of human faces. Participants were instructed to memorize them, and 10 minutes later, they were asked to look at a new series containing the previous 24 images and 24 new ones, in order to attempt to identify the ones that they had already seen.

A classical choice

The first test was performed with the subjects listening to classical music in the information consolidation phase but not in the recovery phase, while in the second exercise it was repeated with the auditory stimulus during both phases. However, no significant differences were observed in terms of results.

Classical music was used in these exercises because "it's a type of music that falls between relaxing and arousing, and has proven to be the most effective for enhancing memory". Furthermore, the fact that it is instrumental reduces the interference (that can come from lyrics) with the content that the participants have to learn in the memory task.

A ray of light

However, Calabria's team wanted to carry out a third experiment using popular music which was considered arousing rather than relaxing, and after a preliminary study, they used an instrumental version of Un rayo de sol (A ray of light), by the group Los Diablos. In that experiment, according to Calabria, the results suggested that "the use of music as a strategy for mood regulation is associated with better performance in memory tasks."

Ongoing research

This finding opens up the possibility of further research to continue exploring the role of interindividual preferences and attitudes towards music among patients with MCI. The group plans to continue the project until late 2024.

During this time, it will investigate whether background music could be more useful in other cognitive domains, such as in attention and concentration in patients with Parkinson's disease. The experiments will also involve the use of a new infrared spectroscopy device in the Neuro Lab, one of the recently opened new laboratories at the UOC, which will show the activation at the cerebral level while cognitive processes are taking place. This will help to determine whether or not there are any alterations in the brain's modulation, in which areas this takes place, and whether it depends on the type of person studied, regardless of the level of response to music.

In overall terms, this will help to find a type of marker which determines the people most likely to benefit from music in cognitive tasks. "The more we know about how background music shapes cognitive processes, the better the use we can make of music as a therapeutic tool in cognitive stimulation," concluded Calabria, an expert in the study of cognitive processes and a member of teaching staff on the UOC's Master's Degree in Neuropsychology.

This research project receives funding from the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain, and contributes to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 3, Good health and well-being.

Reference article:

Calabria, Marco et al. 'Background Music and Memory in Mild Cognitive Impairment: The Role of Interindividual Differences'. 1 Jan. 2023: 815 – 829. DOI: 10.3233/JAD-221051

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+34 619 413 823

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The UOC's research and innovation (R&I) is helping overcome pressing challenges faced by global societies in the 21st century by studying interactions between technology and human & social sciences with a specific focus on the network society, e-learning and e-health.

Over 500 researchers and more than 50 research groups work in the UOC's seven faculties, its eLearning Research programme and its two research centres: the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and the eHealth Center (eHC).

The university also develops online learning innovations at its eLearning Innovation Center (eLinC), as well as UOC community entrepreneurship and knowledge transfer via the Hubbik platform.

Open knowledge and the goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development serve as strategic pillars for the UOC's teaching, research and innovation. More information: research.uoc.edu.

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The MEM-COG study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease reported that background classical music neither improved nor impaired learning in people with mild cognitive impairment.

That study also found that more 'high-arousal' music could help people who habitually use music as an emotional regulator.

Other research and reviews link active music engagement, particularly playing an instrument such as the piano, with improved memory, executive function, and brain plasticity in older adults.

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Home > Health> Wellness > Playing an instrument is linked to better brain health, reveals study

Playing an instrument is linked to better brain health, reveals study

A new study shows that playing an instrument is especially good for older adults as it is associated with improved memory and executive function

The study showed that continuing to play into later life is linked to greater benefits. (Pexels)

It’s well-known that practicing or listening to music can reduce stress and improve mood. Now, a new study has found that playing an instrument is especially good for older adults as it is associated with better brain health.

For this study, researchers from the University of Exeter reviewed over 25,000 people’s musical experience and lifetime exposure to music, as well as results of cognitive testing, to find out whether playing instruments or singing helps to keep the brain sharp in later life, the university’s press statement explained.

Also read: How music can prevent cognitive decline

The findings, published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, showed that playing a musical instrument, particularly the piano, is associated with improved memory and executive function—the ability to solve complex tasks. Notably, continuing to play into later life is linked to greater benefits.

The study showed that singing also led to better brain health. However, this could also be because of the social factors of being part of a choir or group. In the statement, Amy Corbett, one of the study authors said the findings show that “promoting musical education would be a valuable part of public health initiatives to promote a protective lifestyle for brain health, as would encouraging older adults to return to music in later life.”

Corbett added that this approach could enable older adults to proactively reduce their risk and promote brain health.

Previous studies have also shown that engaging with music can improve the quality of life of older adults. For instance, a study published in NeuroImage: Reports in April 2023, discovered that music can help alter cognitive decline in healthy older adults by stimulating the production of grey matter. With age, brain plasticity, a process that involves adaptive structural and functional changes to the brain, decreases. But the study showed that practicing and listening to music can enhance brain plasticity and cognitive reserve.

A 2021 study conducted by researchers from the University of Toronto (U of T) and Unity Health Toronto found similar associations. The findings, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, showed that repeated listening to personally meaningful music leads to beneficial brain plasticity in patients with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer's disease.

Also read: Listening to your favourite songs can reduce pain: Study

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Content: Scientists from the University of Bath have discovered the effect of playing the piano on cognitive abilities.
It turned out that classes on this musical instrument contribute to improving the processing of information by the brain and raise mood.
The findings of the work are reported in the journal Scientific Reports, reports Day.Az with reference to Gazeta.ru.
During the study, the researchers followed 31 adult participants for 11 weeks, who were divided into two groups: the first was engaged in music, and the second only listened to it.
The subjects in the first group were taught to play the piano for only one hour a week, and previously they had no musical experience.
Volunteers from the second group at this time listened to music or used it for homework.
The authors noticed that a few weeks after the start of the experiment, people ’ s ability to process multisensory information (visual and audio) improved significantly.
In practice, this is useful for almost any type of activity, from driving a car to finding someone in a crowd or watching TV.
Thanks to music education, audiovisual processing of information has become more accurate in performing other tasks.
Those who received piano lessons performed better in appropriate trials, in which they were asked to determine whether sound and visual "events" occurred simultaneously.
In addition, such participants had reduced manifestations of depression, anxiety and stress.
Experts believe that music classes can be useful for people with mental disorders, so in the future they plan to conduct more research on this topic.

A 2023 NeuroImage: Reports paper referenced in the review reported that practicing and listening to music can stimulate grey matter and enhance cognitive reserve.

Neuroscience research shows that pleasurable music can activate reward circuitry (including the nucleus accumbens) and support learning through reward prediction mechanisms.

Title:

Content: Humans have been making, listening, and dancing to music since time immemorial, and this art can easily soothe or amplify our emotions. New research explains what “chords” music strikes in the brain, and how it relates to certain cognitive processes, particularly learning.

In recent years, researchers have shown more interest in how listening to music can pragmatically benefit us in numerous ways.

For instance, studies such as this one, which Medical News Today covered last spring, have suggested that people with Alzheimer’s disease who face anxiety and other stressful emotions cope better when they listen to music.

Listening to certain types of music may even alter our perception and change the way we see potential partners, while happy songs can help boost our creativity.

In a new study, the findings of which feature in the journal PNAS, researchers from McGill University in Montreal, Canada have now shown that we can use music to activate the brain’s reward center and motivate learning in an error prediction model.

“Although many authors have proposed that the intense emotions and pleasures of music result from expectancies, predictions, and their outcomes […], direct evidence for this proposition has been lacking,” the researchers write.

The current research finally gets to the bottom of this proposition, using a musical reward learning task and functional MRI to understand how pleasurable music motivates the brain to learn and to strive for its reward.

The team worked with 20 participants aged between 18 and 27 years, whom they asked to take part in a musical reward experiment. Each person had to choose a combination of colors and directions, and each combination had a different probability of the participant hearing either pleasant music or a dissonant, unpleasant audio track.

After a few attempts, the participants learned which combinations they should choose in order to increase their chances of accessing the enjoyable music reward.

While the volunteers were participating in this task, the researchers used functional MRI to measure their brain activity. Then, using a special algorithm, the investigators calculated the difference between how often the participants expected to receive their reward and the number of times they actually received it.

On further comparing this data with the functional MRI scans, the team found that correct predictions correlated with heightened activity in a brain area called the nucleus accumbens, which previous research has tied to the experience of pleasure when listening to music.

This finding indicates that music is, in itself, a viable reward and one that can provide enough motivation to the brain to learn new information that will allow it to access this source of pleasure more easily.

Furthermore, the participants who found the right combinations and made the correct predictions the most often, which correlated with heightened activity in the nucleus accumbens each time, also made the most learning progress throughout the tasks.

“This study adds to our understanding of how abstract stimuli like music activate the pleasure centers of our brains,” explains study author Benjamin Gold.

Our results demonstrate that musical events can elicit formally modeled reward prediction errors like those observed for concrete rewards, such as food or money, and that these signals support learning. This implies that predictive processing might play a much wider role in reward and pleasure than previously realized.”

Benjamin Gold

Practical implications from these sources are that background classical music is not guaranteed to boost learning for all students and that effects depend on music type and individual differences.

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Content: Can Listening to Music Enhance Your Work Productivity?

Music has been an integral part of human culture for centuries, with its ability to stimulate emotions and connect people on a deep level. Beyond its entertainment value, music has also been suggested to have various benefits, including its potential to boost productivity. But does listening to music really enhance work productivity or is it just a myth?

Studies have shown that music can indeed have a positive impact on work performance, but the effects may vary depending on the nature of the task and personal preferences. For some individuals, listening to instrumental music or melodies without lyrics can create a conducive environment for concentration and focus. The absence of lyrics may limit potential distractions, allowing the mind to delve into the task at hand with greater ease.

On the other hand, complex and cognitively demanding tasks may require a quieter environment devoid of any auditory stimuli. In such cases, music with lyrics or faster beats may hinder concentration and hinder performance. The brain may struggle to process both the language in the lyrics and the task simultaneously, leading to decreased productivity.

Furthermore, the type of music also plays a crucial role in its impact on productivity. Different genres and tempos can evoke a range of emotions, affecting focus and motivation. For instance, classical music has long been praised for its ability to induce relaxation and mental clarity, making it popular among students and professionals alike. Upbeat and energetic music, such as pop or electronic beats, may provide a burst of energy and motivation for more mundane or repetitive tasks.

In conclusion, music can indeed enhance work productivity, but the effects are not universal. It largely depends on the individual’s personal preferences, the nature of the task at hand, and the type of music being listened to. Experimentation is key to finding the right balance between background music that aids concentration and one that may disrupt focus. So, the next time you find yourself zoning out during a tedious task, consider putting on some music that aligns with your work goals and see if it makes a difference.

Several articles recommend using instrumental, familiar, and appropriately arousing music and testing effects individually in real settings.

Summary: Based on the provided documents, evidence for a Mozart Effect is mixed—some studies and reviews associate musical training or certain music-listening habits with cognitive benefits, but controlled studies in people with mild cognitive impairment found no universal short-term benefit from background classical music, so classroom use should be tested and individualized.