I recently posted a link to an article in Current Directions in Psychological Science re: the Mozart Effect. It can be viewed at:

http://tinyurl.com/owrv2

Kevin McGrew
http://www.intelligencetesting.blogspot.com

There does seem to be an effect at work.I know my daughter likes both Mozart and a CD called Music for Infants that has some very calming classical music. Most of the parents I know think in terms of “calming effect” rather than “Mozart effect”As far as making children smarter, that is a loaded question. Perhaps classical music creates the environment that fosters greater imprinting dexterity.

I doubt if listening to Mozart will make you smarter, but it’s not a big leap to assume that very specific kinds of brain functions could be enhanced by some kinds of music. Correlation between music and math has been noted in individuals who were prodigies in both.

The mozart effect is mostly crap – the original researchers haven’t been very successful in replicating their results. This has been a notorious time hole for beginning graduate students looking for an effect.

Glanced at the book, bought it as it contained many references to Parkinsons Disease (my friend has had PD for many years). Harp music helps relieve the tremors caused by the meds he takes. It doesn’t work every time but when it does it is amazing!!!

As I wrote a few months ago, in some ways the benefits of music on cognition are not as controversial as this discussion makes it seem. For example, six-year-old children who are given keyboard or voice lessons have shown a reliable 2 to 3 point increase in IQ scores compared to control groups who received other types of artistic lessons. Pre-schoolers with two years of music lessons scored better on spatial reasoning tests than those who took computer lessons for the same time. And as has been noted, as little as 10 minutes of exposure to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major resulted in a temporary enhancement of spatial-temporal reasoning on the Stanford-Binet IQ test. Mozart has also been shown to allow some with Alzheimer’s disease to function more normally, to reduce the severity of epileptic seizures, and even to lessen the need for sedatives in surgery relative to no music or white noise

Some hold that the effect of such music is only to elevate arousal and mood, which then results in improved performance and well-being in a variety of situations. But if true, the Mozart effect is one of the few examples of an extremely rare phenomenon known as ‘far transfer,’ in which experience with one domain (music) can transfer benefits to a completely distinct domain (spatial reasoning).