Accidental Blogger

Believe it (or in it) or not. That's the name of a scientific
paper published in a journal on the validity of the famed 'Mozart Effect'. I
love the name, more so that a scientist dared to use it in the actual
title of his paper.

"The transient enhancement of performance on spatial tasks
in standardized tests after exposure to the first movement “allegro
con spirito” of the Mozart sonata for two pianos in D major (KV
448) is referred to as the Mozart effect since its first observation by
Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky (1993). These
findings turned out to be amazingly hard to replicate, thus leading to
an abundance of conflicting results. Sixteen years after initial
publication we conduct the so far largest, most comprehensive, and
up-to-date meta-analysis (nearly 40 studies, over 3000 subjects),
including a diversity of unpublished research papers to finally clarify
the scientific record about whether or not a specific Mozart effect
exists…."

The clincher:

" On the whole, there is little evidence left for a
specific, performance-enhancing Mozart effect."

So much for
the tinkling sounds of Mozart's lullaby that played whenever I turned
the key of my kid's musical mobile, and then when the keys of his play gym
were pressed, playing the opening strains of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Or
the ubiquitous Baby Einstein videos playing variants of Mozart in
millions of homes where anxious parents rushed to enhance their babies'
spatial skill abilities.
Regarding the role of music in general to enhance learning, this
recent study indicates it makes very little difference:

"Verbal learning during the exposure to different background
music varying in tempo and consonance did not influence learning of
verbal material. There was neither an enhancing nor a detrimental
effect on verbal learning performance. The EEG data suggest that the
different acoustic background conditions evoke different cortical
activations. The reason for these different cortical activations is
unclear. The most plausible reason is that when background music draws
more attention verbal learning performance is kept constant by the
recruitment of compensatory mechanisms."

This might
account for the effects of my listening to old Bollywood tunes on the
late night radio show. For a while, it contributed to lack of attention
to my studies and more to the music, as I tried to figure out the
lyrics. I took to noting them down in a blue diary. Once I was done, it
was relegated to the background the next time I heard it. I don't know
if it helped me in my exam preparations, but I was one of the "Most
Wanted" members of the class team for a game based on the starting lines of Hindi songs, since I had so many obscure lines memorized.

Check out the hilarious comments on this article. It looks like more people are terrified of the loss of Mozart as the easy method to IQ enhancement than are delighted by the results of this study. Oh the humanity! Kids have to learn to play music, rather than merely listening to it, to get brighter!

(Cross-posted from Fluff 'n' Stuff)