According to measurements of their brain activity and error rate, all three groups were equally good at identifying deviant sounds from a designated central speaker. Only the conductors, however, could reliably pinpoint deviant sounds from a particular peripheral speaker. The same brain areas were active in all three groups, suggesting that conductors do not use different groups of nerve cells for this task. But people normally turn their heads to the source of a sound they find interesting. Conductors, though, have a whole orchestra around them, arranged in a semicircle.
Constant training seems to improve that ability.