“The Mozart Effect”

What is the “Mozart Effect”? §“Music and Spatial Task Performance” §Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major §Stanford-Binet intelligence test §Significant rise in scores

Spatial-temporal reasoning Spatial-temporal reasoning involves transforming and comparing mental images in space and time.

Popular Response §Sold out in Boston §Georgia’s governor gives free classical music §Tennessee followed §Florida mandates day-cares §New York: Mozart effect study room §Don Campbell

Original Researchers §Findings over-inflated §Reanalyzed 1993 study §Only PF&C task improved

Attempts to Replicate Effect §Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM) §Revised Minnesota Paper Form Board Test §Backwards digit span task

Ambiguities §APM tests using physical similarities §Paper Form Board Test is a spatial orientation test §Backwards digit span task is “quasispatial”

Successful Study §Paper Folding and Cutting subtest §Mozart increased scores time and time again

Why can’t the Mozart effect be tested using science? §Physics and Biology §Spatial-temporal problems

Physics §If a sky-diver jumped out of a plane in the spread-eagle position and then pulled his cord to release the parachute, would he be accelerated once the parachute opened? If so, in which direction?

Biology §People with sickle-cell anemia have red blood cells that have a defective sickle shape to them. Malaria is caused by a parasite that lives in the salivary glands of the Anopheles mosquito and is passed into a human as it feeds. This parasite uses red blood cells to reproduce. Is it possible for people with sickle-cell anemia to be immune to malaria? Why or why not?

Benefits §Critical thinking §Past knowledge §Set classroom atmosphere §Quiet a noisy room

In this day and age of new technology, we sometimes fail to tackle the simplest of problems. We worry more about having a perfect Power Point presentation than ensuring that all the students are focused on the learning task which is about to be presented. We take them from a natural setting which they have known most of their lives, the play- ground, and put them into an alien environment, the classroom, and expect them to perform without fail. Why not make their daily transition an easier one with the help of Mozart? Why not help them increase their test performance with a sonata?