15/10/2017
The most highly publicized mental influence of music is the "Mozart effect." Struck by the observation that many musicians have unusual mathematical ability, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, investig*ted how listening to music affects cognitive function in general, and spatial-temporal reasoning in particular. In their first study, they administered standard IQ test questions to three groups of college students, comparing those who had spent 10 minutes listening to a Mozart piano sonata with a group that had been listening to a relaxation tape and one that had been waiting in silence. Mozart was the winner, consistently boosting test scores. Next, the investig*tors checked to see if the effect was specific to classical music or if any form of music would enhance mental performance. They compared Mozart's music with repetitive music by Philip Glass; again, Mozart seemed to help, improving spatial reasoning as measured by complex paper cutting and folding tasks and improving short-term memory as measured by a 16-item test.
How
