This is perhaps my favorite set of slides. My mother is a music therapist. I wont ever discredit the value of music as a therapy, because I absolutely believe in its ability to improve a patients overall well-being. Further, I will even support the idea that certain music can cause individuals to feel more intensity or lack there of; for example, the relaxing effect of Jimmy Buffet while my toes are in the sand and I'm drinking a beer. However, listening to Mozart while I'm trying to do my homework is extremely distracting. It's either comparable to a classmate continuously clicking their pen in a silent classroom, or watching some beautiful-distracting piece of art work being danced across a stage inf front of me. In summation, it is distracting.
The original study did say there was a small IQ increase of a small amount of students. I'd be interested to see the study further expanded upon. Perhaps some math majors or art majors are put into different rooms. One room is silent, one room has Mozart, one has current top 40. They have to complete tasks based on reason, creativity, memory, or mathematical equations. I'd be interested in some various experiments of that nature.
What an interesting occupation to be around, it sounds fascinating. I completely agree with your points. Your ideas on how to expand the study is quite smart. It would be interesting to see how it would affect mathematical thinkers versus artsy, creative ones.
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