The Mozart Effect
Have you ever hear the old saying “Mozart makes babies smarter”? Can a mother simply playing Mozart while the infant sleeps actually increase her baby’s brain function? Well there is now evidence that this once perceived ‘old wives tale’ is actually true. The studies done to prove this seemingly bizarre event have deemed it, The Mozart Effect.
The Mozart Effect is a set of research results that indicate that listening to Mozart's music may induce a short-term improvement on the performance of certain kinds of mental tasks known as “spatial-temporal reasoning”. Spatial-temporal reasoning is the ability to visualize mental pictures of spatial patterns and mentally changing them over a time-ordered sequence of spatial transformations. This ability is important for generating and conceptualizing solutions to multi-step problems that arise in areas such as architecture, engineering, science, mathematics, art, games, and everyday life (“Definition of Spatial-Temporal Reasoning”). Major studies have been conducted on this theory, and the lead enthusiast and founder of this study was Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis. The concept of the "Mozart effect" was described by French researcher, Dr.Tomatis, in his 1991 book Pourquoi Mozart? He used the music of Mozart in his efforts to "retrain" the ear, and believed that listening to the music presented at differing frequencies helped the ear, and promoted healing and the development of the brain (Tomatis).
Another enthusiast was J.S. Jenkins. His beliefs came from a study in 1993, that was conducted by Rauscher which made the surprising claim that, after listening to Mozart's sonata for two pianos (K448) for 10 minutes, normal subjects showed improvement in spatial reasoning skills than after periods of listening to relaxation instructions designed to lower blood pressure or silence. The mean spatial IQ scores were 8 and 9 points higher after listening to the music than in the other two conditions. The mentally stimulating effect did
The Mozart Effect is a set of research results that indicate that listening to Mozart's music may induce a short-term improvement on the performance of certain kinds of mental tasks known as “spatial-temporal reasoning”. Spatial-temporal reasoning is the ability to visualize mental pictures of spatial patterns and mentally changing them over a time-ordered sequence of spatial transformations. This ability is important for generating and conceptualizing solutions to multi-step problems that arise in areas such as architecture, engineering, science, mathematics, art, games, and everyday life (“Definition of Spatial-Temporal Reasoning”). Major studies have been conducted on this theory, and the lead enthusiast and founder of this study was Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis. The concept of the "Mozart effect" was described by French researcher, Dr.Tomatis, in his 1991 book Pourquoi Mozart? He used the music of Mozart in his efforts to "retrain" the ear, and believed that listening to the music presented at differing frequencies helped the ear, and promoted healing and the development of the brain (Tomatis).
Another enthusiast was J.S. Jenkins. His beliefs came from a study in 1993, that was conducted by Rauscher which made the surprising claim that, after listening to Mozart's sonata for two pianos (K448) for 10 minutes, normal subjects showed improvement in spatial reasoning skills than after periods of listening to relaxation instructions designed to lower blood pressure or silence. The mean spatial IQ scores were 8 and 9 points higher after listening to the music than in the other two conditions. The mentally stimulating effect did
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