Classical music doesn't boost cognitive functions

May 10, 2010 13:31 GMT  ·  By
Listening to Mozart's music has no quantifiable effects on people's cognitive abilities, a new survey finds
   Listening to Mozart's music has no quantifiable effects on people's cognitive abilities, a new survey finds

For a long time, researchers have been arguing about whether listening to classical music can be related to a boost in cognitive functions, especially for children. Back in 1993, a study published in the prestigious scientific publication Nature found a direct correlation between hearing Mozart's music and enhanced spatial task performance. These results caused quite a stir, and some officials even issued laws requiring day-care centers to play classical music to children each day. But a new investigation provides final evidence that the Mozart effect does not exist, AlphaGalileo reports.

The authors of the work are Jakob Pietschnig, Martin Voracek and Anton K. Formann, who are all research scientists at the University of Vienna, in Austria. They published the results of their investigation in the latest issue of the respected scientific journal Intelligence. They say that the results would seem to indicate that listening to Mozart's music (or to other pieces of classical music) does little to enhance specific cognitive functions, as the other research suggested.

The new work is basically an extensive review of all the existing literature on the topic of the Mozart effect. More than 40 independent studies were included in this survey. In total, the researchers say, the studies featured around 3,000 participants, on which the conclusions were based. The basic conclusion that was made obvious from this investigation was that listening to Mozart's music had no direct influence on the spatial abilities of listeners.

“I recommend listening to Mozart to everyone, but it will not meet expectations of boosting cognitive abilities” explains Pietschnig, who was the lead author of the research. The findings are in tune with those made by Scott E. Lilienfeld, who is a psychologist at the Emory University. In one of his books, called “50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology,” he ranks the Mozart effect as the sixth most widely-circulated myth. The author of the 1993 paper that made the claim was Frances H. Rauscher, a psychologist from the University of California in Irvine (UCI). Other science groups have had a hard time replicating the initial tests, and this led to the Nature piece being received with skepticism from the get-go.