| Themes > Arts > Music > Developmental Effects of Music > Does listening to Mozart Affect Spatial IQ? |
| In a previous well publicized experiment published in 1993, Rauscher and colleagues, of the University of California Irvine, reported that listening to Mozart (compared to relaxation instructions or silence) produced a brief but significant increase in performance of a spatial IQ task (involving mental manipulations of folded cut paper) in college students (Nature, 1993, 365, 611). This has drawn sufficient interest to produce at least one attempt at replication. In 1994, Stough and colleagues, of the University of Aukland, examined the effects of listening to Mozart, popular dance music or silence on a related test of intelligence (Personal. & Individ. Diffs., 1994, 17, 695). They found no effects. Thus, it would appear that the original report of Rauscher et al was in error. However, recently, Rauscher et al have replicated and extended their findings (Neurosci. Letters, 1995, 185, 44-47). In this study, they used the same task as in their first experiment but extended the types of listening experienced. Seventy-nine college students were divided into three groups: silence, Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos, K448, (the same piece that produced the positive results in the 1993 study) and a group that heard a minimalist work by Phillip Glass. Only the Mozart group showed a significant increased spatial IQ score. In further sub-studies, it was found that listening to a taped short story or dance music did not enhance test scores. Therefore, the facilitation of a measure of spatial IQ seems to be specific to some aspect of the Mozart piece rather than music per se or attending to a story. Although the failure of the Stough group to find an effect needs to be reconciled with these findings, the Rauscher et al replication and extension does provide strong support for their view that listening to Mozart specifically facilitates spatial reasoning. |
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