„Mozart Music Makes You Smarter“…

…titled the Los Angeles times a few years ago. Have you ever heard of the Mozart-effect? The idea is that if babies or children listen to music composed by Mozart become more intelligent. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Just buy your newborn baby a CD or, if you are more ambitious, stimulate the unborn child with classical music and it will become super intelligent.

Where does this idea come from?

Neurobiologist Gordon Shaw tried to illustrate brain activity on a computer and found out that nerve cells adopt specific rhythms and patterns. He decided to turn the output into sounds and found realized that these sounds sounded familiar with some of the characteristics of baroque music. In 1993 he joined two other scientists and created together with them the study “Music and Spatial Task Performance”. The three scientists from the University of California divided college students into three groups. The subjects were given a series of mental tasks to complete. All of the tests were designed to measure spatial intelligence. The participants had to, for example, mentally unfold a piece of paper that has been folded over several times and then cut. The test looked like this:

If you know the answer please leave a comment J

Before each task they listened either to ten minutes of silence, ten minutes of a tape of relaxation instructions or ten minutes of Mozart’s sonata for two pianos in D major. The students who listened to the sonata increased their IQ by eight to nine points. For a short time they were better at spatial tasks than their colleagues. These findings made front-page headlines (the heading of this post is an example).

This sounds great so far but before you a CD collection of classical music to improve your intelligence -  read on.

Gordon Shaw and his colleagues made clear that this effect lasts only for about fifteen minutes – the time it took to take the test. Although the effects were temporarily and the Mozart-effect is a myth, the findings caused public interest. In 1998 the Governor of Georgia set aside state budget so that every newborn baby could receive a CD of classical music.

In 2001 Carlo Cignozzi set up speakers throughout his vineyard in order to keep pests away from his vine. He began playing a selection of classical music to his plants 24 hours a day and noticed that the grapes ripened faster.

Farmers in America and Italy play Mozart’s music to their cows to help them produce more and better milk.

I really like the idea that listening to Mozart makes you smarter and although I know that it is a myth, I could imagine listening classical music with my unborn baby. What do you think of this topic?