This is scientific American's 60 second science. I'm Christopher Intalyata. Got a minute?

The 2016 presidential candidates have subjected voters nationwide to a cognitive challenge.

Can you untangle what one candidate's saying,

while the others talk over him?

Donald, I understand rules are very hard for you.

They're very confusing.

Okay, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, the reality TV show, not him. are very hard for you. They're very hard for you. I have his book.

Yeah, on a TV show, not in Donald.

That challenge is a test of something called the Cocktail Party Problem, or Speech on Speech

Perception, which researchers in the Netherlands recently investigated,

with a group of 18 musicians and 20 non-musicians, to see if musicians are any better at it.

The scientist played the study subjects a sample of one speaker masking another.

For example, try to follow what the second speaker in this clip is saying.

A pot of tea helps to pass the evening. Except they use Dutch samples.

We must drug.

Aruggs. Anyway, the participants listen to this multi-voiced babble with headphones, and then attempted to repeat the target sentence, to see how many words they could make out.

And it turns out musicians scored significantly higher than non-musicians did in deciphering the target phrase. The study is in the journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

It turns out musicians might be better at something called stream segregation, separating out one meaningful audio stream, among others.

And this is the case indeed for musicians when they want to listen to ear out one specific instrument within a group of instruments.

Etienne Godin, a hearing scientist at University Medical Center Froningen in the Netherlands.

His co-author, Danish Boskin, agreed.

Anecdote to live when I speak to my musician friends,

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