The Mozart Effect
The Mozart Effect is the term for the idea that listening to classical music will improve your intelligence. The idea is baloney, and yet it enjoys wide belief. Check out MozartEffect.com, where Don Campbell sells a variety of products that will supposedly help people use music to improve their minds and bodies. The Skeptic's Dictionary has a good article debunking the phenomenon. Now Stanford researcher Chip Heath and his colleague Adrian Bangerter have published research tracking the evolution of the idea of the Mozart Effect. They trace The concept back to a 1993 experiment that found college students experienced a slight rise in IQ when listening to classical music (other researchers were never able to duplicate these results). From there the concept took off. But even though the original experiment involved college students, it didn't take long before people were applying the idea to infants and teenagers. So Heath and Bangerter came up with the hypothesis that "the legend of the Mozart Effect grew in response to anxiety about children's education." And "Sure enough, they found that in states with the most problematic educational systems (such as Georgia and Florida), newspapers gave the most coverage to the Mozart Effect." It seems like an interesting case study of what fuels the spread of misinformation.
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Categories: Birth/Babies, Entertainment Posted by Alex on Sun Jul 31, 2005 |
Comments (38) |
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You people are missing the point. You have to start a child on Mozart before development. It's too late to try the theory later in life!
Posted by Valerie Ellner on Wed Feb 13, 2008 at 01:47 PM
Mozart Effect was only true in relation to other types of music... but good article anyway
Posted by lyrics on Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 09:33 AM
Keynesianism still doesn't make sense to me even in a "stop the bleeding" situation. To understate the point, the stock market has tanked recently. After finding out banks had crap on their balance sheet, owners sold off stock as fast as possible in order salvage whatever funds they could. Stocks are based on the value of a company, they're little slices of ownership in a large corporation. If the corporation is growing, turning a profit, etc. they increase in value because the company has presumably created "something." If an event happens that causes people keep selling them off, then a glut of company stock hits the market, therefore making individual stocks less expensive.
Posted by Pain on Thu Mar 12, 2009 at 06:26 AM
wow this thread is really old, but here goes anyway................i don't agree that it is necessary to spend vast sums on mozart stuff for your kids. just press play on your cd player and play it as it was composed. however, i do agree that it aids concentration. i am a software engineering student and i sometimes spend 10 hours or even all night programming and i definitely perform better with mozart playing. i feel the code moving around in my head at probably double the speed of when i program in silence. i recommend the violin concerto #5 but its all good really.
its just my opinion, i reckon there is something in it.
Posted by david on Mon Apr 20, 2009 at 06:16 PM
its just my opinion, i reckon there is something in it.
I personally believe that classical music enriches the soul, soothes the body and stimulates the mind. The beautiful sound of Mozart focuses the mind to enter into a deep concentration and thus increasing intelligence.
Posted by Crystal Rivera on Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 12:38 AM
If I'm supposed to be concentrating, I can't have music on. It's just too distracting.
Posted by m on Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 10:27 AM
I prefer not to listen to anything but myself mumbling the words of the book when I am studying; otherwise, my brain flops up. Having said that, I didn't mean that I can't study when there's music playing in the background...I just can't study "well enough" for the matter. I like peace and quiet.
Posted by Anne Pauline on Fri Feb 19, 2010 at 04:03 AM
It might not work, but for sure it sells records.
Posted by chalimac on Mon Dec 13, 2010 at 05:29 PM
{stupid336x280}
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