I was recently approached by a reader who asked if I'd heard of the Mozart effect. I hadn't, so he briefly described it and suggested I write an article on the subject.
In a nutshell, the Mozart effect claims that listening to classical music, particularly to Mozart, makes you smarter. The whole thing started in 1993, when Francis Rauscher, Gordon Shaw and Katherine Ky of the University of California at Irvine published a report in Nature. They measured university students' ability to form mental images from physical objects, or to see patterns in space and time, under three different conditions.
The tests were carried out after the students spent 10 minutes listening to a Mozart sonata or to a relaxation tape or just sitting in silence. After listening to Mozart, the students scored nine points higher in the IQ test over the scores they registered after listening to the relaxation tape or after the period of silence. The increase in IQ didn't last beyond the time taken to do the experiment.
This team later showed that preschool children who had received weekly piano lessons improved their scores by 34 per cent on a task requiring them to put a puzzle together. The benefits lasted a couple of days. Studies were also carried out on rats, which were exposed for 12 hours a day to white noise, silence or classical music. The rats exposed to classical music were then able to run through a maze faster, making fewer mistakes than the other rats.
Another study published in Nature, in May 1996 by Martin F Gardiner, again pointed to a link between music and learning. First-grade students were divided into two lots. One lot received the standard school music and visual-arts instruction. The other was taught to sing using the Kodály method, which emphasises singing songs that are sequenced in difficulty, and playing musical games.
After seven months the two groups were tested for reading and for mathematical ability. The two groups were at about the same level in reading, but the Kodály group was far better at maths than the other group, even though it had started out slightly behind.
The Mozart effect is far from being firmly established. Some researchers are unable to replicate the results I have reported. Although the primary researchers in the area are guarded in their conclusions, the Mozart effect took on a life of its own when accounts of the research were related by the mass media.
In the United States there is now widespread demand that classical music be included in school curriculums. There is also commercial promotion of the notion that the Mozart effect can not only make you smarter but also pretty much cure all ills, strengthen the mind and unlock the creative spirit.
There is a theoretical basis to explain how music could mould the brain, particularly the developing brain. A newborn has about 100 billion loosely connected, or unconnected, nerve cells. The baby's experiences, such as listening to parents, forge and strengthen links between the nerve cells. Pathways of links in the brain that are unused eventually wither. Listening to classical music may be one of the experiences that can mould the brain's wiring and help to determine adult properties.
Whatever about the possibility that exposure to classical music sharpens the intellect, the broader claims that it is also very beneficial to physical and mental health seem dubious. If these claims were true, why was Mozart so prone to ill health, and why are the members of symphony orchestras not all models of physical and mental well-being?
There are also reports that plants are affected by music. In the 1970s, Dorothy Retallack did experiments in Denver, Colorado. In one she grew plants in two chambers, placing radios in each chamber. The radio in one chamber was tuned to a rock station, that in the other to a station that played soothing middle-of-the-road music. Three hours of music was played each day.
The plants in the rock-music chamber grew abnormally, bent their stems away from the radio and did not thrive. The plants in the soothing-music chamber grew luxuriantly and bent their stems towards the radio. By day 16, most of the plants in the rock-music chamber were almost dead. The plants in the other chamber were in beautiful condition.
Science can explain how musical instruments produce sounds. The sound combinations produced by musical composers are pleasing to the ear. The sequence of these sounds has mathematical pattern, a pattern that is much more complex for classical music than for popular music.
Listening to classical music may reinforce pathways in the brain that are used in mathematical-type reasoning. I don't think there is nearly enough evidence available yet to state this for definite, however. Also, as regards the effect of music on plants, if this is true why don't plant breeders routinely play music to plants?
The great classical-music compositions were written to express the spectrum of human emotions. Listening to the music evokes these emotions and is a pleasurable way to help us to become more fully human ourselves. This is a sufficient end in itself. We should not consume music like vitamin pills.
William Reville is associate professor of biochemistry and director of microscopy at University College Cork