Music and the Brain- A TEDx Talk by Dr. Jessica
Grahn
Source:
Summary:
Dr. Jessica
Grahn, a cognitive neuroscientist from the University of Western Ontario, discusses
the background of the “Mozart Effect”, which posits that listening to Mozart
will make you smarter.
Many products
surfaced after the suggestion of the Mozart Effect, claiming to make us
smarter. Bach for the Brain, Mozart for
the Mind, The Mozart Effect for Moms and Moms-to-be, and Mozart for Accelerated Learning are all
examples of products that claim to stimulate bonding, communication and
learning before birth; invigorate brain growth and development in the womb; and
positively affect emotional perceptions and attitudes from pre-birth onward.
The excitement surrounding the notion of the “Mozart Effect” reached a climax
when Democratic Governor Georgia Zell Miller put forth a bill that would
provide classical CDs to every baby born in the state of Georgia. The media
claimed that this was all “backed with science”.
But as Dr. Grahn
explains in her talk, the origin of the Mozart Effect comes down to one study
conducted by Frances Rauscher out of the Univeristy of Wisconsin in 1993. In
this study, researchers Rauscher, Shaw and Ky wanted to find out if listening
to the music of Mozart affected cognitive abilities outside of music. Students were tested on spatial intelligence
(the ability to visualize objects in space) in three different conditions
(Mozart music, relaxation instructions and silence). This means that before the
test on spatial intelligence, the first group listened to music by Mozart for
10 minutes, the second was instructed on how to relax and the third just sat in
silence. The results of the test showed
that the Mozart group scored the highest, which led the media to conclude
“Mozart makes you smarter”.
Many questions
were raised from this study. Specifically,
what is special about Mozart? Could other kinds of music produce the same
results? Could there be some other reason that the Mozart group does better on
spatial tests? Other researchers
attempted to replicate results to try to solve this dilemma. One study compared
children’s performance on spatial intelligence tests after listening to Mozart
versus a popular children’s song.
Results of this study suggested that performance has more to do with
enjoyment than the music itself. Another
study compared scores of students who listened to Mozart to those who listened
to a Stephen King novel. Results showed that those who preferred the audio book
over Mozart performed better after hearing the Stephen King audiobook, and
those who preferred Mozart more than the audiobook, did better after hearing
Mozart. This further supported the
notion that spatial ability had nothing to do with Mozart or music at all, but
instead had to do with enjoyment, and the mood music put them in before the
test. Dr. Grahn explains that mood and
emotional state has been found to affect cognitive abilities, such as spatial
intelligence. This means that if one is in a positive mood, such as after
hearing preferred music, then one is likely to do well on a test of spatial
intelligence.
These studies
demonstrate that music does not have special cognitive enhancing
functions. However, by changing our mood
and emotional state it can produce powerful effects on our body and mind, which
in turn can help our performance on tests.
Reflection:
Dr. Grahn’s
presentation was very to the point and had a clear message. Listening to music
does not simply make us smarter over night, but it does affect our mood and if
we are in a good mood we tend to do better in our daily activities. As a
musician and future music educator myself, I was hoping by the end of the
presentation that I could confidently say that listening to music alone can
enhance the cognitive power of our brains. Who wouldn’t want to be able to say
that? To hear that it does not, I admit, disheartened me just a little bit. It
always seems like music educators need to justify why music is important, and
often those who do not think music is important demand scientific proof stating
otherwise.
Rauscher’s 1993
study, which led to the “Mozart Effect”, all of a sudden gave us another reason
to claim that music makes you smarter. Although other research has led us to believe
that listening to music alone cannot make us smarter, we can hold on to the
fact music listening does have a powerful impact on our emotional state, which
in turn has a powerful effect on our cognitive abilities. The fact that music
listening can affect us in a universal way unlike anything else is important to
understand for music educators and musicians.
At some point in our lives, we will all be in a position where we will
have to defend this profession to others and having this research on our side I
believe will help.
What I find
interesting to note is that if just listening to music can affect our spatial
intelligence and one’s ability on tests, then what could music training
do? This question requires more research
then what was presented here by Dr. Grahn, but it is important information
nonetheless, which could be very valuable to not only professional musicians
but for teachers trying to convince students to take/stay in band. In my opinion based from my experiences, I
don’t think music training necessarily made me smarter but it has certainly developed
certain qualities in myself such as my work ethic, my attention to detail, my
presentation skills and my knowledge and appreciation for aesthetics, among
others. I would be very interested to
see what research was done in this area and how it could affect my career
moving forward.
Music can do a
lot of things and I believe it holds a significant place in education and in
health care. As Grahn said in her
presentation, it is used extensively in the rehabilitation process of dementia,
Parkinson’s, stroke and is also a powerful tool for altering our mood and
arousal which can only help motivate us to work. This is all great information, and it proves
that music has an important place in this world. I am excited at what I learned about the
effects of music listening, and I hope to continue this research to learn about
music training and the effects that it can have on our minds.
Works Cited
Rauscher, F., Shaw, G. & Ky, K. (1993)
Music and spatial task performance. Nature, 400(6747), 827-828.
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