Does Listening to Mozart Make us Smarter?
If there was one, simple trick to make your child smarter than the rest, there would be no doubt that parents would leap on it. Many people have an innate fascination with the ability to unlock some sort of hidden, latent potential using simple ‘hacks’. However, claims of these ‘hacks’ existing are often based on poorly constructed pseudoscience and urban myths. One such claim is the “Mozart Effect”, which suggests that listening to classical music produces various benefits, especially to young children and babies, including boosting IQ and emotional development, in effect SUPER BOOSTING the brain.
Where it all began
In 1993 Rauscher et al. published a study on the effect of listening to Mozart (https://www.nature.com/articles/365611a0), in which the researchers discovered a temporary boost to spatial reasoning upon listening to Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K. 448 by Mozart. The boosts were very slight, and the effect lasted less than fifteen minutes. However, this discovery that music could improve our performance sparked a viral outbreak of claims that had close to no resemblance to the original study. Mozart was proclaimed to be vital listening for every infant, baby, and even foetus.
Former Georgia Governor, Zell Miller proposed $105,000 to help make classical music available to a hundred thousand children born in Georgia each year (https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/15/us/georgia-s-governor-seeks-musical-start-for-babies.html).
Debunking the Mozart Effect
It didn’t take long for these claims to be placed under scrutiny. One study found that Mozart wasn’t even required for the boost in spatial reasoning to take place; a spoken passage from a Steven King story or pop music worked just as well, or in some cases better (https://www.nature.com/articles/23608). The study explained that a general arousal from listening to music was responsible for the boosts. A replication of the original experiment doubted the effect ever existed at all (https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-03781-013). The claim that listening to Mozart improves the brain development of infants has not been found to be conclusive in any peer reviewed research paper
It can be said that the backbone for the “Mozart Effect” was established by wishful thinking, inaccurate reporting, clickbaity headlines and novel marketing stunts by companies that have released books and CDs which claim to not only boost IQ, but also cure disorders and emotional problems based on the Mozart Effect (https://www.mozarteffect.com/).
Whilst the ‘Mozart Effect’ has been thoroughly debunked. The hypothesis that music can impact our brain’s performance is one that researchers continue to explore, with surprising results.
What have we found since then?
A study found that programmers had an improvement in mood, a slight improvement in quality of work, and worked faster when listening to music compared to when they worked without music (https://www.gwern.net/docs/music-distraction/2005-lesiuk.pdf). Another study discovered music was detrimental when played in a memory recall task, affecting introverts more than extraverts (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1000.1425&rep=rep1&type=pdf). This is interesting as it may suggest that our personality plays a large part in determining how music will affect us.
How about listening to music in the long run? Although it is hard to find concrete evidence for music making us smarter per se, there are plenty of findings that demonstrate music may play a key role in a therapeutic setting, with evidence that it may help prevent cardiac and cerebral diseases [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.871.9062&rep=rep1&type=pdf] and improve communicative skills in children with autism [https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004381.pub2/abstract]. Even more well researched are the benefits of musical training, with results showing music training improves performance in spatial reasoning tests among young children [tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01616412.1997.11740765]. Music training also correlates with higher IQ and academic ability, even when accounting for confounding factors such as socio-economic status and parents’ education [https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-06234-014]. Neurological differences have been observed between musicians and non-musicians, further strengthening the idea that music training benefits the brain [http://musicianbrain.gottfriedschlaug.org/papers/Schlaug_Music_Child_Brain_NYAS2005.pdf].
Science is continuously transforming our view of music from one of leisure to something we can use to boost our productivity and health. Soon enough, we may see music being played in an open office setting, or inside school classrooms.
What’s the verdict?
Listening to classical music may not work as a hack to boost your brain; however, that isn’t to say music has no effect at all. Scientists continue to explore further links between music and our cognitive ability, as well as therapeutic benefits which may be unseen in more traditional methods of therapy. What’s to say that in thirty years time music ( or spoken passages from a Steven King story) might be inseparable from open plan offices?