The "Mozart Effect"

The "Mozart Effect" is a simplistic theory that essentially says listening to classic music, or Mozart specifically, can increase your spatial reasoning (or in plain English, help you overachieve mentally). The theory first garnered attention in 1993 (Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky) when it was reported that 36 college students tested well on the Stanford-Binet Scale of Intelligence. The students did the testing while listening to Mozart plano sonata, and the results were said to be the equivalent of adding on 8 or 9 IQ points. Of course after these staggering results, the “Mozart Effect” then took on heavier testing from a variety of institutions. However, these tests failed to generate anything positive in regards to the likelihood of the theory being concrete. After many failed independent and commercial studies, the belief in the “Mozart Effect” lost its traction.

Although I wasn’t familiar with the formal name of the theory, it was certainly something I had heard before taking this class. In my limited experience in applying the theory, whether it was listening to classic music during school work or even during something analytical like a game of chess, it always felt like my mental capacity was slightly elevated. Perhaps there is more to come from this effect!