Communicating Science (2012w210)

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Without scientific proofs, many people tend to correlate Mozart’s compositions with the superstition that its complex stimuli to the brain will increase the intelligence in newborns. One of the most apparent example is that parents often play Mozart’s composition to their newborn with the hopes that their child will become smarter later in life. This is commonly known as the Mozart effect. The Mozart effect was first introduced in 1991, but it did not become a popular topic two years later when this idea was published in a journal by Nature, a science journal. Since the publication of this journal, many began advertising CDs and online audio of Mozart’s music. For example, in 1998, the governor of the state of Georgia in the United States placed aside a certain budget so each newborn babies will be sent a classical CD. Similarly, upon his visitation to a farm in Italy, Sergio Della Sala, a psychologist, learns that the farmer plays Mozart three times a day for the cows to help them produce better milk. However, while there are many examples of the Mozart effect, there has not been any scientific reasoning to support this theory.

Although the Mozart effect was very popular, some studies done did not derived the same conclusion. For example, in 2006, a large study involving eight thousand children ages 10 to 11 was conducted in Britain. These children listened to Mozart’s string quintet in D major, a discussion on a certain discussion, or a sequence of three pop songs: “Country House” by Blur, “Return of the Mack” by Mark Morrison, and “Stepping Stone” by PJ and Duncan. Following the experiment, participants were given series of mental tasks to complete. Most commonly, the tasks focus on asking participants to look at folded pieces of paper with different cuts in them and they are then asked to predict the appearance of the paper when it is unfolded. In this particular experiment, the results were that the children who listened to series of pop music did better than the children who listened to Mozart. In addition, studies focused solely on the Mozart group shows that the effect of listening to Mozart to increase intelligence is only temporary. The mozart effect only last 15 minutes on average. This caused many questions about the Mozart effect and whether listening to Mozart’s music really improves intelligence in newborns and children.

With studies failing to support the Mozart effect, other studies began to question the failure as well as to derive new conclusion based on old data. An explanation for rejecting the Mozart effect is that perhaps providing the brain with any kind of stimulus, preferably something that interests the participants, is enough to stimulate the brain to perform. Furthermore, a study conducted by Jessica Grahn, a scientist from Western University, Ontario, suggests that to increase long-term intelligence, learning a music instrument in one year can increase one’s IQ by as much as three points. Thus, the era of the Mozart effect was proven to be over and the era of learning new instruments began.

Here is a short radio clip from BBC Radio 4 on Mind Myths where it talks about common myths about human brains, including the Mozart effect.

-Vivian Wu

Reference:

Hammond, C. 2011. Mind Myths. BBC Radio 4.

Sack, K. 1998. Georgia’s Governor Seeks Musical Start for Babies.

Schellenberg, E.G., and Hallam, S. 2006.   Music listening and cognitive abilities in 10- and 11-year-olds: The Blur effect. University of Toronto at Mississauga, Department of Psychology, Ontario.