In a previous well publicized experiment published in 1993,
Rauscher and colleagues, of the University of California Irvine,
reported that listening to Mozart (compared to relaxation
instructions or silence) produced a brief but significant
increase in performance of a spatial IQ task (involving mental
manipulations of folded cut paper) in college students
(Nature, 1993, 365, 611).
This has drawn sufficient interest to produce at least one
attempt at replication. In 1994, Stough and colleagues, of the
University of Aukland, examined the effects of listening to
Mozart, popular dance music or silence on a related test of
intelligence
(Personal. & Individ. Diffs., 1994, 17, 695).
They found no effects. Thus, it would appear that the original
report of Rauscher et al was in error. However, recently,
Rauscher et al have replicated and extended their findings
(Neurosci. Letters, 1995, 185, 44-47).
In this study, they used the same task as in their first
experiment but extended the types of listening experienced.
Seventy-nine college students were divided into three groups:
silence, Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos, K448, (the same piece
that produced the positive results in the 1993 study) and a
group that heard a minimalist work by Phillip Glass.
Only the Mozart group showed a significant increased spatial
IQ score. In further sub-studies, it was found that listening
to a taped short story or dance music did not enhance test scores.
Therefore, the facilitation of a measure of spatial IQ seems to be
specific to some aspect of the Mozart piece rather than music per
se or attending to a story. Although the failure of the Stough
group to find an effect needs to be reconciled with these findings,
the Rauscher et al replication and extension does provide strong
support for their view that listening to Mozart specifically
facilitates spatial reasoning.
