The Mozart Effect

Music and Cognition: The Mozart Effect Revisited

BY JESSE HAMLIN

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In 1993, researchers at UC Irvine published a study in the journal Nature showing that 36 undergrads temporarily improved their spatial-reasoning IQ scores after listening to part of Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major. The story got blown up and oversimplified in the mainstream media, which trumpeted the so-called Mozart effect, the notion that listening to classical music makes you smarter.

The idea was picked up by politicians and popularized by people like Don Campbell, who wrote the best-selling books The Mozart Effect and The Mozart Effect for Children. He actually trademarked "The Mozart Effect" name, and built a small empire peddling CDs and books that variously claim to heal the body and stimulate your baby's brain. The Irvine researchers, Dr. Francis Rauscher and the late Dr. Gordon Shaw, distanced themselves from all the hype, which they said distorted their findings.

"Generalizing these results to children is one of the first things that went wrong," Rauscher told NPR in 2010. "Somehow or another the myth started exploding that children that listen to classical music from a young age will do better on the SAT, they'll score better on intelligence tests in general, and so forth."

Yet for all the debate about the effect of music listening and training on general cognitive ability, a growing body of research strongly suggests that studying musiccan enhance a child's learning skills, including reading. A significant new Canadian study shows that preschoolers who participated in a computerized musical training program improved their verbal intelligence scores after only 20 days.

"Music and language have common biological mechanisms. Musical training strengthens them," says Dr. Nina Kraus, a noted neurobiologist who runs Northwestern University's Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, via e-mail.

"Hear" Training

Kraus' research has shown that musicians, who memorize sounds and patterns, can process music and language better than people who don't have musical training. Over time, she says, musical experience fundamentally changes how the nervous system responds to sound. Among other things, musicians are better at hearing speech in noise, an important skill for kids trying to learn in a bustling classroom.

"Music and language have common biological mechanisms. Musical training strengthens them." – Dr. Nina Kraus

Kraus argues that music should be taught in schools in part because it could engage attention and memory skills, strengthening kids' "phonological processing" and enhancing their reading skills. As she puts it, reading and music both involve mapping sounds to meaning.

"In addition to contributing to great amusement and well-being, practicing music does, in fact, appear to make you smarter — at least smarter when it comes to how you hear," Kraus and her Northwestern colleague, Dana Strait, wrote in a recent study, published in Music Perception, titled "Playing Music for a Smarter Ear: Cognitive, Perceptual and Neurobiological Evidence."

Kraus, whose lab is in the midst of a four-year study on music education and adolescent brain development, was impressed by a study published in October by researchers at York University in Toronto. It showed a rise in verbal IQ scores among young kids who took an interactive music-training program.

Exploring the Link Between Music and Language

The study's title echoes its conclusion: "Short-Term Music Training Enhances Verbal Intelligence and Executive Function."

Directed by Dr. Sylvain Moreno, now the lead scientist at the Center for Brain Fitness at the University of Toronto's Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest, the study focused on 48 kids between the ages of 4 and 6. Half of them participated in an interactive, computerized music-training program; the other half took part in a similar program about visual art. Both software programs were designed by Moreno, using the same cartoon characters, graphics, and tone.

The music kids learned about rhythm, pitch, melody, singing, and basic theory. The art kids learned about line, color, shape, dimension, and perspective. None of the kids had studied music or art before, and none of their parents were professional musicians or artists. The kids participated in the training for two hours a day over a 20-day period.

"The more the music training induced changes in the brain, the more the children improved their intelligence scores." – Dr. Sylvain Moreno

Before and after completing the programs, each child took the oral Vocabulary and Block Design subtests of the standardized Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of the Intelligence test (the vocabulary to measure verbal ability, the block design to gauge spatial ability). The children were also given a "go/no-go" task — pushing a button when a white shape flashed on a computer screen, or refraining from pushing it when a purple one appeared — while electrodes were attached to their heads to record their brain activity.

There was no appreciable difference in IQ scores between the music kids and art kids before the training. But afterward, more than 90 percent of the music kids improved their verbal scores — some by 14 points — while the art kids showed no significant improvement in verbal ability, and only slight improvement in their spatial skills.

Similarly, the music kids showed greater accuracy on the "go/no-go" task after the training. And their brain waves had notably larger peak amplitudes, showing an increase in brain activity. The task, which engages the fronto-parietal networks of the brain that deal with attention, measures what the brain people call executive function.

Skills That Transfer

"Through this musical training, we were able to stimulate a special brain area, and through this stimulation, we were able to raise the verbal intelligence of these kids," says the French-born Moreno, on the horn from his Toronto lab. "It's astonishing that we can do that after 20 days!"

He calls the study, published in Psychological Science, a scientific breakthrough. It's the first to show a causal relationship between musical training and improved intelligence scores and attention, he says, and it demonstrates that the transfer of one cognitive skill to another can occur in early childhood.

"We had brain plasticity in children after 20 days," he says. "The brain behavior changed after the musical training. And what we found that was crucial was that the change in intelligence was correlated with the change in the brain: The more the music training induced changes in the brain, the more the children improved their intelligence scores."

Moreno thinks these findings have important implications for people involved in education and the study of brain plasticity.

The results tell him that "music training is incredibly powerful, and there is a special link between music and these core skills of the brain. ... This curriculum, through the power of music, is like a switch button for the cognitive development of children. You turn the switch on to learn."

Nina Kraus, whose research Moreno and his colleagues cite in their report, gives high marks to the Canadians' work. "It's a very important study," she says. "The effects in verbal IQ scores is a significant discovery."

The causal effect of Lady Gaga on teen literacy awaits further study.

Jesse Hamlin has written for The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications over the past 30 years on a wide range of music and art, covering jazz musicians and symphonic conductors, sculptors, poets, and architects. He has also written for The New York Times, Art & Auction and Columbia magazines, as well as liner notes for CDs by Stan Getz and Cal Tjader.

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Joyce Keil

Artistic Director

Ragazzi Boys Chorus

What does it means to be human?

What does it mean to be human?

 

Scientists and philosophers have asked this question over the years.  As they uncover evidence of earlier humans, scientists have discovered that 30,000 and more years ago there were two branches of the human family, with the Neanderthals living side by side with our ancestors.  In the movie Cave of Forgotten Dreams, the question is raised: what distinguishes the humans from the other creatures alive at that early time.  The drawings in the recently discovered Chauvet caves in southern France show a culture of early humans who live with a deep sense of spirituality and reverence.  The beautifully artistic paintings are renderings of animals and people in various poses and ceremonies that reveal a sense of deeply human life.

 

The authors ask, what does this mean?  What is it to be human?  What does the term "Homo sapiens" mean?  A young scientist translates this as "human knowing" but suggests that a more apt term for our species is "human spiritual."  As he has worked with the drawings and searched for the mysteries of this ancient culture, trying to infer how they lived and thought, he concludes that this culture expresses through their art the deepest need of humans to connect and to communicate.  This is what distinguishes us from other species. We express ourselves through art, music, stories and leave "artificial" traces of our lives for future generations to discover.

 

As I looked at the art and listened to these stories, I reflected on the nature of modern education.  If the most important part of being human is to connect through art and music and stories, why is our education geared toward the skills of material accumulation.  We prepare our children to get into schools which will yield them the best jobs to create the most wealth so that their children can continue the cycle.  In an age where arts education has been designated a frill or an extra, we have lost our connection with what it means to be human.

 

Ragazzi strives to complement the education of our children with this spiritual connection to music and to communication.  We reach back in time to discover the art of the past and we stretch out to learn music of far-reaching cultures of our present day.  Our singers connect to each other and find ways to express themselves through this music.  We connect with our audiences by sharing what we discover.  As we explore what it means to be fully human, we reconnect with cultures from ages long past.

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Joyce Keil

Artistic Director

Ragazzi Boys Chorus

Family support for children and teens

The Importance of Family Support 

by Micaela Presti and the Palo Alto Council of PTAs

Family support refers to the ways that parents, siblings, and extended family 

show love, encouragement, and comfort to each other.  The Developmental 

Asset survey of Palo Alto youth in 2010, reveals that while younger youth 

generally experience family support, teenagers do so much less often: 89% 

of our 5th graders reported family support, 84% of our 7th graders, but only 

66% of our high school students reported the asset.  So, why the big drop 

off?  Some of it is developmental.  In achieving independence, kids don't 

think they need the support from parents as much as from friends and push 

us away. 

Clay Roberts recently came and spoke to Palo Alto community members, 

middle school teachers and parents about the developmental assets and how 

we can build them in our youth.   He spoke about the importance of "love 

languages".   To illustrate the point, he used the story of the husband who 

gives his wife an appliance for her birthday.  She was expecting jewelry.  In 

the husband's language, the appliance was a great idea because he knew she 

loved to cook.  In her language, well, she didn't find it romantic or 

thoughtful.  Robert's point was, we need to know how our partners and 

children interpret our love language. While we may think we are 

communicating support to our family members, it doesn't hurt to once in a 

while to check to see that they are actually feeling it! 

Support can be shown in many ways.  When you hug or kiss your child, and 

say "I love you," the support is pretty obvious.  Less obvious ways of 

showing support include just paying attention to them, listening to them and 

taking an interest in what they are doing.  Our teens are striving to develop 

independence from us. It is hard for parents to not be able to interact in the 

same ways with them.  Teens often want to just talk and have you listen, 

without giving any feedback or advice.  It allows them to work through the 

situation on their own. 

In their book Parenting Teens with Love and Logic, Foster Cline, M.D. and 

Jim Fay discuss the transition from parenting younger children—who 

typically require guidance and firm limits—to parenting adolescents, who 

benefit most from the freedom to make their own decisions within the 

boundaries of safe, reasonable limits. According to Cline and Fay, effective 

parenting in the teenage years requires clearly communicating expectations

and consequences while allowing youth to make their own decisions and 

"own" the results…even if their choices are not the ones that we would have 

preferred. 

One of the most important things to realize about providing family support 

to older children is that they need the love and support every bit as much as 

younger children do, even if they claim that they don't.  Although it can be 

challenging to remain connected to preteens and teenagers, the benefits of 

doing so are immense. 

The activities below offer a starting point to help build and strengthen the 

asset of family support. 

* Make family rules together, and agree on rewards for following the 

rules and consequences for breaking them. 

* Try to eat at least one meal together every day, and set aside at least 

one evening or weekend day for the family to spend together in a 

pastime that everyone enjoys or finds valuable. Make the effort to 

maintain these traditions and rituals even if your children complain 

about them when they're older. 

* Be sure to recognize your children's unique talents and encourage 

their interests, even when they don't match yours. For example, if 

they're interested in animation, check to see if there's a convention or 

film festival in your region that you can attend together. 

* Look your children in the eyes when you talk to them, and give them 

all of your attention in conversation. 

* Be empathetic about their struggles and concerns—no matter how 

silly or trivial their problems seem to you, they are significant to your 

children. 

* Praise your children for doing a good job and point out when they're 

being helpful. 

* At least once a day, try to express that you appreciate and care about 

your children. 

* Be affectionate, but respect their space; older children especially may 

be uncomfortable about displays of affection in front of non-family 

members. 

This article was adapted from Project Cornerstone and Bainbridge 

Community News. 

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Joyce Keil

Artistic Director

Ragazzi Boys Chorus