How Effective is the Mozart Effect?

For decades, research has been conducted on the relationship of learning and music with conflicting results. Music is typically associated with mood, feeling, emotion, and subjectivity. The connections between music and emotion are traced back to music’s temporal and abstract features. Until recently, there has been a tradition within social theory devoted to music’s power. This tradition can be seen Plato’s Republic. Socrates says, “[I]t seems that here in music, the guardians will build their guardhouse . . . Then, from the start, in their earliest play the young will be kept to law and measure through music.” This passage indicates that social order is fostered, in part, by aesthetic order, and that in turn is substantiated by the arts. For many, it is logical that music has effects. It is logical that music may allow more creativity to flow by removing some of the blocks to creativity, such as stress. However, it is difficult to prove the specific effects of music because it is difficult to measure emotions in lab experiences. It is even more difficult to quantify and prove music’s ability to enhance intelligence.

The most famous results of research on learning and music revealed that music enhances children’s spatial reasoning ability. In 1993, Gordon Shaw, a physicist and Frances Rauscher, a former concert cellist, of the University of California at Irvine, used Mozart’s music in their experiments. The term, “Mozart effect,” was originated by Alfred A. Tomatis to describe the purported enhancement of brain development of children under three years old who listen to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s music. Researchers Shaw and Rauscher had college students listen to the first 10 minutes of Mozart’s “Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major.” They revealed that the students had a temporary enhancement of spatial-temporal reasoning, measured by the Stanford-Binet IQ test.

Spatial reasoning is the ability to take information and transform it to spatial representations so it can be easily understood, for example the ability to put complex information into a graph. Spatial reasoning is significant and has a direct relationship to intelligence. However, in Shaw and Rausher’s experiment, the meta-analysis IQ scores were not calculated for spatial ability, but overall intelligence increase. Actually, Shaw and Rauscher gave the students a paper cutting and folding test and found the Mozart group showed a temporary eight- to nine-point increase over their scores when they took the test after either a period of silence or listening to a relaxation tape.

In a follow-up experiment, Shaw and Rausher gave preschoolers music lessons. Although claims are made that Mozart’s music improves a baby’s intelligence, no tests have been conducted on infants’ spatial intelligence. The youngest children that have been tested on spatial intelligence had a mean age of 11.95 years.

The theory of the Mozart effect has been questioned, and there are as many skeptics as there are supporters. For example, in the book, The Skeptic’s Dictionary, the theory is challenged by the following questions:

“If Mozart’s music were able to improve health, why was Mozart himself so frequently sick? If listening to Mozart’s music increases intelligence and encourages spirituality, why aren’t the world’s smartest and most spiritual people Mozart specialists?”

Psychology Professor Kenneth Steele and John Bruer, head of the James S. McDonnell Foundation, assert that listening to Mozart does not enhance intelligence. Steele, Karen Bass and Melissa Crook followed Shaw and Rauscher’s protocols and found no effects of Mozart’s music on intelligence. In his book, The Myth of the First Three Years (1999), John Bruer states that, “Stories stressing that children’s experiences during their early years of life will ultimately determine their scholastic ability, their future career paths, and their ability to form loving relationships have little basis in neuroscience.”

Organizational behavior professor, Chip Heath, and his colleague Adrian Bangerter analyzed newspaper articles about the Mozart effect from 1993 to 2001. Heath and Bangerter concluded that “the legend of the Mozart Effect grew in response to anxiety about children’s education.” They also revealed that the findings of the Mozart effect research was distorted in many of the newspaper articles and, “people were less and less likely to talk about the Mozart Effect in the context of college students who were the participants in the original study, and they were more likely to talk about it with respect to babies-even though there’s no scientific research linking music and intelligence in infants.”

Although listening to Mozart may have some effect on a person, research has shown that an increase in spatial reasoning can be generated by any auditory stimulation, such as listening to a program on TV or other types of music. The resulting increase in spatial reasoning has been attributed to the relaxing effect that it has on the body, and possibly the brain. The assumption is that when people listen to music they enjoy, they release endorphins, which provide a good feeling. Therefore, if a person is in a positive state, he/she will learn more easily. However, the inconclusiveness of Mozart effect research adds to skepticism about the ability of Mozart’s music to enhance spatial reasoning. This skepticism is summarized by Christopher Chabris, Research Associate at Harvard University, “This effect, if indeed there is one, is much more readily explained by established principles of neuropsychology – in this case, an effect on mood or arousal. There’s nothing wrong with having young people listen to classical music, but it’s not going to make them smarter.”

References

Bangerter, A. & C. Heath (2004). The Mozart effect: Tracking the evolution of a scientific legend. British Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 605-623.

Bruer, John T. (1999). The myth of the first three years: A new understanding of early brain development and lifelong learning. New York: The Free Press.

Carroll, R. (2004). The skeptic’s dictionary. [E-Book] http://skepdic.com.

McKelvie, P. & Low, J. (2002). Listening to Mozart does not improve children’s spatial ability: Final curtains for the Mozart effect. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 20, 241-258.

Plato. (1966). The republic. (Ed. and trans. by A. I. Richards). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G. L, & Ky, K. N. (1993). Music and spatial task performance. Nature, 365, 611.

Steele, K. M., Brown, J. D., & Stoecker, J. A. (1999). Failure to confirm the Rauscher and Shaw description of recovery of the Mozart effect. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 88, 843-848.