20100522 The Mozart Effect (?)

Scientists dispute the 'Mozart effect'

By JAVIER ESPINOZA

LONDON—Listening to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart might make you feel good,
but don't expect his music to make you smarter.  The belief that
listening to the famous Austrian composer from an early age will boost
a person's intelligence, also known as the "Mozart effect," took off
following a 1993 study by American psychologist Frances Rauscher. The
study was widely interpreted as crediting Mozart's music with the
ability to make people smarter.

But researchers at the University of Vienna have found that Mozart's
music doesn't really have any significant effect on improving people's
IQs. By dissecting 39 international studies conducted on 3,000
individuals over the last 16 years, lead researcher Jakob Pietschnig
and his team at the faculty of psychology discovered that "listening
to Mozart has a very small effect" on mental abilities.

"The effect after listening to Mozart did not differ in size from
effects after listening to any other kind of music like Bach,
Beethoven or Pearl Jam," Mr. Pietschnig said.

Prof. Rauscher's study was met with skepticism among the scientific
community from the very start, because experts were unable to
replicate research that found that listening to 10 minutes of the
music of the famous composer would improve student's performance in
mental tests right away. But the study didn't make any such claims in
the first place, says Prof. Rauscher, who now works at the University
of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Newspaper headlines were partly to blame, she
says. "I think the newspaper headlines, such as 'Mozart makes the
brain hum' caught people's attention," she says, referring to a New
York Times article. "Unfortunately, many of these articles did not
specify that the effect was for spatial-temporal tasks only until well
into the article."

The study nevertheless kicked off a mini industry. Many businesses,
including Walt Disney Co. with its Baby Mozart DVDs, used the idea to
market their products, further fueling the myth. What makes the idea
of the Mozart effect to attractive, is that it promises an easy
solution to an issue many parents worry about, says Mr. Pietschnig.
"These are things people want to believe in," he says. "It's like a
magic bullet which you put in your child and it makes him more
intelligent." But Prof. Rauscher says she didn't pick Mozart at
random. "We chose Mozart for several reasons, including that his music
contains strong symmetry. There are multiple motives in the music that
repeat mathematically," she says. "This is particularly the case for
the first movement of his Sonata for 2 pianos K. 448, which we used in
the original 1993 study."

Yet it's not only Mozart whose music we should credit with enhancing
cognitive skills, says Prof. Rauscher, who doesn't have children to
play Mozart to but has a parrot who prefers Led Zeppelin. "Any other
music, including pop or rock, that has similar qualities would be
equally likely to induce these effects—as long as the listener enjoys
the music. I personally cannot listen to anything while I am working,
although I know this is not the case for many people," she says.

In any case, Prof. Rauchner believes people should be more aware of
the benefits of listening to music. "The link between music and
learning is very important. Our studies consistently find that
children who learn to play a musical instrument at an early age score
higher on spatial and arithmetic tasks," she says.

And as for listening for Mozart, Mr. Pietschnig, the sceptic,
encourages people to do so: "I really like Mozart's music. I think
people should listen to his music but I don't think it's right for
people to get their hopes up thinking they will be more intelligent
somehow."