The Mozart effect can refer to: A set of research results indicating
that listening to Mozart's music may induce a short-term improvement on the
performance of certain kinds of mental tasks known as "spatial-temporal
reasoning;" Popularized versions of the hypothesis,
which suggest that "listening to Mozart makes you smarter", or that early
childhood exposure to classical music has a beneficial effect on mental
development; A US trademark for a set of commercial
recordings and related materials, which are claimed to harness the effect for a
variety of purposes. The trademark owner, Don Campbell, Inc., claims
benefits far beyond improving spatio-temporal reasoning or raising
intelligence, defining the mark as "an inclusive term signifying the
transformational powers of music in health, education, and well-being."
The term was first coined by Alfred A. Tomatis who used Mozart's music as the
listening stimulus in his work attempting to cure a variety of
disorders. The approach has been popularized in a book by Don Campbell,
and is based on an experiment published in Nature suggesting that listening to
Mozart temporarily boosted scores on one portion of the IQ test. As a result, the
United States' Governor of Georgia, Zell Miller, proposed a budget to provide
every child born in Georgia with a CD of classical music.
Alfred A. Tomatis The concept of the "Mozart effect" was
described by French researcher Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis in his 1991 book
Pourquoi Mozart?. He used the music of Mozart in his efforts to "retrain" the
ear, and believed that listening to the music presented at differing frequencies
helped the ear, and promoted healing and the development of the brain.
Rauscher et al. 1993 study Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky investigated the
effect of listening to music by Mozart on spatial reasoning, and the results
were published in Nature. They gave research participants one of three
standard tests of abstract spatial reasoning after they had experienced
each of three listening conditions: a sonata by Mozart, verbal relaxation
instructions, and silence. They found a temporary enhancement of
spatial-reasoning, as measured by spatial-reasoning sub tasks of the
Stanford-Binet IQ test. Rauscher et al. show that the enhancing effect of the
music condition is only temporary: no student had effects extending beyond the
15-minute period in which they were tested. The study makes no statement of
an increase in IQ in general. Popularization
While Rauscher et al. only showed an increase in "spatial intelligence", the
results were popularly interpreted as an increase in general IQ. This
misconception, and the fact that the music used in the study was by Mozart,
had an obvious appeal to those who valued this music; the Mozart effect was
thus widely reported. In 1994, New York Times music columnist Alex Ross wrote in
a light-hearted article, "researchers [Rauscher and Shaw] have determined that
listening to Mozart actually makes you smarter", and presented this as the
final piece of evidence that Mozart has dethroned Beethoven as "the world's
greatest composer. " A 1997 Boston Globe article mentioned some of the Rauscher
and Shaw results. It described one study in which three- and four-year-olds who
were given eight months of private piano lessons scored 34% higher on tests of
spatio-temporal reasoning than control groups given computer lessons, singing
lessons, and no training. The 1997 book by Don Campbell, "The
Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the
Mind, and Unlock the Creative Spirit", discusses the theory that listening to
Mozart may temporarily increase one's IQ and produce many other beneficial
effects on mental function. Campbell recommends playing specially selected
classical music to infants, in the expectation that it will benefit their
mental development. After The Mozart Effect, Campbell wrote
a follow-up book, The Mozart Effect For Children, and created related products.
Among these are collections of music that he states harness the Mozart effect
to enhance "deep rest and rejuvenation", "intelligence and learning", and
"creativity and imagination". Campbell defines the term as "an inclusive term
signifying the transformational powers of music in health, education, and
well-being. It represents the general use of music to reduce stress,
depression, or anxiety; induce relaxation or sleep; activate the body;
and improve memory or awareness. Innovative and experimental uses of
music and sound can improve listening disorders, dyslexia, attention deficit
disorder, autism, and other mental and physical disorders and diseases".
These theories are controversial. The relationship of sound and music for
cognitive function and various physiological metrics has been explored
in studies with no definitive results. Political impact
The political impact of the theory was demonstrated on January 13, 1998, when
Zell Miller, governor of Georgia, announced that his proposed state budget
would include $105,000 a year to provide every child born in Georgia with a tape
or CD of classical music. Miller stated "No one questions that listening to
music at a very early age affects the spatial-temporal reasoning that
underlies math and engineering and even chess." Miller played legislators some
of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" on a tape recorder and asked "Now, don't you feel
smarter already?" Miller asked Yoel Levi, music director of the Atlanta
Symphony, to compile a collection of classical pieces that should be
included. State representative Homer M. DeLoach said "I asked about the
possibility of including some Charlie Daniels or something like that, but they
said they thought the classical music has a greater positive impact. Having
never studied those impacts too much, I guess I'll just have to take their word
for that." Subsequent research and meta-analyses
While some supportive reports have been published, studies with positive results
have tended to be associated with any form of music that has energetic and
positive emotional qualities. Moreover, the intellectual benefits of enhanced
mood and arousal are not restricted to spatial-temporal reasoning, but extend
to speed of processing and creative problem solving. Among children, some
studies suggest no effect on IQ or spatial ability, whereas others suggest
that the effect can be elicited with energetic popular music that the
children enjoy. The weight of subsequent evidence supports either a null effect,
or short-term effects related to increases in mood and arousal, with
mixed results published after the initial report in Nature.
In 1999 a major challenge was raised to the existence of the Mozart effect by
two teams of researchers. In a pair of papers published together under the
title "Prelude or Requiem for the 'Mozart Effect'?" Chabris reported a
meta-analysis demonstrating that "any cognitive enhancement is small and does
not reflect any change in IQ or reasoning ability in general, but
instead derives entirely from performance on one specific type of
cognitive task and has a simple neuropsychological explanation", called
"enjoyment arousal". For example, he cites a study that found that "listening
either to Mozart or to a passage from a Stephen King story enhanced subjects'
performance in paper folding and cutting but only for those who enjoyed what they
heard". Steele et. al. found that "listening to Mozart produced a 3-point
increase relative to silence in one experiment and a 4-point decrease in the
other experiment". In another study, the effect was replicated with the original
Mozart music, but eliminated when the tempo was slowed down and major chords
were replaced by minor chords. Another meta-analysis by Pietschnig,
Voracek, and Formann combined results of 39 studies to answer the question as to
whether or not the Mozart Effect exists. They concluded that there is little
evidence to support the Mozart effect, as shown by small effect sizes. However,
the most striking finding in this meta-analysis is the significantly
larger effects published in studies affiliated with Rauscher or Rideout,
with effect sizes more than three times higher for published studies affiliated
with these founding members of the Mozart Effect. These systematic
moderating effects due to lab affiliation call into question the
existence of a Mozart Effect. In addition, this study also found strong
evidence supporting a confounding publication bias when effect sizes of
samples who listened to Mozart are compared to samples not exposed to a
stimulus. Despite implementing Rauscher, Shaw, and
Ky's suggestions of three key components that must be present to replicate the
Mozart Effect, McCutcheon still failed to reproduce the Mozart Effect in a
study with 36 adults. These conditions were: to ensure a task that taps into
spatial components of mental imagery; a research design that does not include a
pretest to avoid ceiling effects; a musical composition that is complex
rather than repetitive and simple. Regardless of listening to classical
music, jazz or silence, the study did not yield a significant effect on
spatial reasoning performance. The Mozart Effect is likely just an
artifact of arousal and heightened mood. Arousal is the confounding variable that
mediates the relationship between spatial ability and music that defines
the Mozart Effect. The "neural resonance" theory of Rauscher and
colleagues which contends that Mozart's music primes the neural pathways of
spatial reasoning has been widely criticized.
Government bodies also became involved in analysing the wealth of reports. A
German report concluded, for instance, that "... passively listening to Mozart
— or indeed any other music you enjoy — does not make you smarter. But more
studies should be done to find out whether music lessons could raise your
child's IQ in the long term". Popular presentations of the "Mozart
effect", including Alex Ross's comment that "listening to Mozart actually makes
you smarter" and Zell Miller's "don't you feel smarter" query to the Georgia
legislature, almost always tie it to "intelligence." Rauscher, one of the
original researchers, has disclaimed this idea. In a 1999 reply to an article
challenging the effect, published along with the article, she wrote:
Our results on the effects of listening to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D
Major K. 448 on spatial–temporal task performance have generated much interest
but several misconceptions, many of which are reflected in attempts to
replicate the research. The comments by Chabris and Steele et al. echo the most
common of these: that listening to Mozart enhances intelligence. We made no
such claim. The effect is limited to spatial–temporal tasks involving mental
imagery and temporal ordering. On efforts like Miller's budget
proposal, and the press attention surrounding the effect, Rauscher has
said, "I don't think it can hurt. I'm all for exposing children to wonderful
cultural experiences. But I do think the money could be better spent on music
education programs." Many scholars in the psychological
community now view the claim that playing classical music to children can
boost their intelligence to be a "myth." = Health benefits =
Music has been evaluated to see if it has other properties. The April 2001
edition of Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine assessed the possible health
benefits of the music of Mozart. John Jenkins played Sonata K.448 to patients
with epilepsy and found a decrease in epileptiform activity. According to the
British Epilepsy Organization, research has suggested that apart from Mozart's
K.448 and Piano Concerto No. 23, only one other piece of music has been found
to have a similar effect; a song by the Greek composer Yanni, entitled
"Acroyali/Standing in Motion". It was determined to have the "Mozart effect",
by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine because it was similar to
Mozart's K.448 in tempo, structure, melodic and harmonic consonance and
predictability. Other uses of Mozart's music
While it is clear that exposure to Mozart does not raise IQ, studies of the
effects of music have explored as diverse areas as its links to seizure
onset or research in animals suggesting that even exposure in-utero in rats
improves their maze learning The original claim continues to influence
public life. For instance a German sewage treatment plant plays Mozart
music to break down the waste faster, reports the UK Guardian. Anton Stucki,
chief operator of the Treuenbrietzen plant was quoted as saying, "We think
the secret is in the vibrations of the music, which penetrate
everything—including the water, the sewage and the cells."
See also Psychoacoustics
Baby Einstein Significance of music education
Listening to Prozac References
External links ""Mozart's music does not make you
smarter, study finds", Science Daily, May 10, 2010
Dowd, Will. ISSN 15565696. The myth of the Mozart effect
Skeptic's Dictionary – The Mozart Effect Frequently asked questions on the Mozart
Effect