The Role Of Music And Spatial Task Performance

This article reveals how Don Campbell, the author of “The Mozart Effect,” believes that listening to music can

The instruments used measured indirectly and were not always reliable due to various issues with patients. Because the control group was not told to change any behaviors some of the patients listened to music which tainted their responses. The instrumentation remained the same throughout the study, but some participants found the questionnaire too disturbing to answer. The researchers did provide an adequate description of the measurement methods and can find the extent of their errors.

“involves a subject conducting a certain task, in this case recalling a series of numbers, while listening to different kinds of background music. If sound exhibits acoustical variations, or what Perham calls an "acute changing-state," performance is impaired. Steady-state sounds with little acoustical variation don't impair performance nearly as much.”(Cutler).

In a study done by Jennifer L. Lilley, Crystal D. Oberle, and Jon G. Thompson, Jr. at Texas State University, they tested the effects of grade consequences and music on test anxiety and performance. The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the effects of the participants grades if there were consequences and how music effects the participates anxiety and their test performances. There were previous works cited on how people improve their spatial cognitive task performances after listening to Mozart (Ho, Mason, & Spence, 2007). They also included studies where there were no benefits to people’s spatial cognitive task performances after listening to Mozart (Hui, 2006).

Other elements to consider within this discipline would be visual and sound equipment. Positive subliminal learning stimulation, such as it is claimed by the theory of the Mozart effect, could be provided.

The music of Mozart has been long praised. His classical sonatas and concertos continue to be recognized as some of the greatest works of music of all time. Since Mozart’s death, many have argued over the relationship between listening to Mozart and intelligence, with many arguing that classical music makes you smarter. Although many myths surrounding the topics of Mozart and intelligence exist, in this paper, I will be addressing the myth in the context that solely listening to the music of Mozart will improve cognitive performance before academic functions such as tests.

Music has been apart of society for thousands of years and an outlet for people's stress and other problems they may be facing. It helps the brain function and understand conditions better by breaking it down and trying to comprehend it. Music has made and is still making an impact on the lives of people all around the world. Because of its impact on peoples lives neuroscientist wanted to get to the source and have been looking at the brain to determine the exact effects of music and they can now answer the question, what effects does music have on the brain? Listening to music can send pleasure to your mind, decide your emotions, lower stress, and improve learning.

However when the two group’s SAT test scores were compared it was found that there was no significant difference between effects on the cognitive abilities of adolescents. This suggests that listening to Mozart only produces short-term increased cognitive abilities. Both these sources refute Don Campbell’s claim that listening to Mozart can have a powerful impact on the creative and intellectual development in children (Taylor & Rowe, 2012). Any cognitive enhancement that occurs is normally minimal and is not lasting as it does not show any change in IQ or reasoning ability (Helder, 2014). Helder states that a basic principle showing that learning has occurred is proven by its repeatability. As the ‘Mozart effect’ was considered only to have a short term effect on cognitive abilities of students then it is unlikely that students could repeat what they had been taught any better than without the music as the effect only lasted 10-15 minutes (Helder, 2014). Pietschnig, Voracek and Formann (2010) state that exposure to music stimulates the section of the cortex that is responsible for spatial awareness. However this stimulation does not result in long-term change in the intellectual and creative development of humans so therefore this refutes Don Campbells claims (Pietschnig, Voracek & Formann, 2010). Sources arguing that listening to Mozart produces only short-term effects on

In modern society intelligence is highly competitive and subject to scrutiny; therefore, it is understandable that a child’s intelligence is a primary concern for many parents. The Mozart effect, popularised in the 1990s, resulted in many parents believing that simply exposing their child to music composed by Mozart would improve their intelligence (Campbell, 1997). The claim was founded by research published in the journal Nature, which suggested that spatial reasoning could be temporarily enhanced by listening to one of Mozart’s compositions for ten minutes (Rauscher, Shaw & Ky, 1993). It will be argued that there is not sufficient evidence to support the claim that playing Mozart to babies will increase their intelligence. Firstly, the

(2001) explained that the “Mozart effect” is due to arousal and mood improvement. The arousal-mood hypothesis proposes that listening to music, affects people’s level of arousal and mood, which in turn influence performance on different cognitive tasks (Husain, Thompson, & Schellenberg, 2002).

Aheadi, Dixon, and Glover were able to identify the benefits of musical training in a study involving the Mozart effect. Aheadi et al. state that, “Evidence suggests musical training can lead to long term enhancement of intelligence” (Aheadi, Dixon, and Glover, 2009, pg. 1). The results in this study showed that musicians had a higher overall performance compared to non-musicians. In a 1998, study completed by Overy, they were able to show that musical training tends to lead to increased intellectual abilities. They extrapolated that musical training improves cognitive functioning in attention, coordination, language, and concentration (Overy,

Understanding the memory system and functionality of the brain is the first step in understanding how music can influence this mechanic. Research has mainly

Otsuka, Yanagi and Watanabe (2008) trained 6 experimentally naive male Wistar rats to discriminate music from Bach and Stravinsky. The rats were approximately 12 weeks of age at the start of the experiment. The rats were trained on a concurrent-chain schedule that allowed the experimenters to observe any preferences towards four different styles of music: Bach, Stravinsky, white noise, and conspecific vocalization. The experimenters used white noise as a control in the study. The results showed that the rats did not have a strong preference to either Bach or Stravinsky. However, the rats disliked the conspecific vocalization compared to the white noise. The rats were able to discriminate between the four styles of music, but the

The “Mozart effect” is a statement based on research studies claiming that listening to the

Research and conducting experiments is the most effective way possible to gain an answer. The type of research is based on the situation, the hypothesis, and the resources the individual or group has on hand. The purpose of this research paper is to examine the Mozart Effect from two different journals and answer questions based on the research materials. The first article for examination is Music and spatial task performance.