The Mozart Effect is the term for the idea that listening to classical music will improve your intelligence. The idea is baloney, and yet it enjoys wide belief. Check out
MozartEffect.com, where Don Campbell sells a variety of products that will supposedly help people use music to improve their minds and bodies. The Skeptic's Dictionary has a
good article debunking the phenomenon. Now Stanford researcher Chip Heath and his colleague Adrian Bangerter have
published research tracking the evolution of the idea of the Mozart Effect. They trace The concept back to a 1993 experiment that found college students experienced a slight rise in IQ when listening to classical music (other researchers were never able to duplicate these results). From there the concept took off. But even though the original experiment involved college students, it didn't take long before people were applying the idea to infants and teenagers. So Heath and Bangerter came up with the hypothesis that "the legend of the Mozart Effect grew in response to anxiety about children's education." And "Sure enough, they found that in states with the most problematic educational systems (such as Georgia and Florida), newspapers gave the most coverage to the Mozart Effect." It seems like an interesting case study of what fuels the spread of misinformation.
Comments
Now, I had heard that PLAYING music helped other areas of education (math, language). And that listening to music could be soothing (to calm add, adhd...etc), and that if you are going to listen to music while studying, listen to classical music, instead of VanHalen.
But curing mental disease and such?? That'd be a trick. Especially, b/c a lot of classical musicians were NUTS.
My thought is that the politicians in those states are unwilling to spend money on education but still want better results, so they BS themselves into thinking that the simple, and cheap, policy of putting classical music CD's in classrooms will give them those results. A classic case of people believing what they WANT to believe.
I am a software engineer, so I spend long hours
programming, which requires intense concentration and critical thinking. I find that Jazz helps me concentrate the best, and often I go to rock (The Beatles and Jethro Tull mostly) when the concentration requirements are less. The Mozart theory is a bunch of crap. It's *music* that helps, and more specifically, the music you like. I've tried listening to Mozart while studying and it had no tangible effect.
I think you've nailed it there, g. Whether or not it makes you smarter all depends on what you'd be doing otherwise. Sort of like reading National Geographic.
By the way, I'm a 12 year old who knows about all of this crap. 😛
I have used this a few times and i don't know if it made me any smarter but i do know that it does let me study for longer and somehow i am able to recall infromation from my studies easier.
I do not believe that there is much difference between the analog and digital style of recording.
😊 and i certainly do not think that you have to buy special recordings of some crack job website in order for it to work.
<3Kaylee
It is not just Mozart's music that has this effect on people but classical music in general,
Although the effects might be varyed from person to person , studies (conducted by the sydney institute of music) show that there is a noticable increase in people's ability to concentrate while listening to classical music. Albeit skeptics like yourself have already come to a verdict, you simply try to prove it wrong. In closing mybe the fact that the person merly thinks that they have something that they think will help them, is enough for it to help them.
It's telling that the source you note is a classical music organization. I work for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and I can tell you that classical venues are DESPARATE to gain new listeners in ANY WAY they can, including marketing it to naive parents who believe that it (along with reading Dostoevsky to a fetus) will help their children become the next Einstein.
thanks!
-I feel more relaxed (and yes, mentally stimulated) when listening to classical music. Maybe its the "magic feather" effect, but if it helps, it helps.
-There will always be negative "nay sayers" who disagree with everything. For those on this page that say they personally tried to put the theory to the test and saw no benefit, is it possible that they could have also been mentally side tracked because they were more focussed on disproving the theory rather than actually relaxing and just studying?
its just my opinion, i reckon there is something in it.