Studies show that Mozart's music enhances brain activity. After listening to the works of the great composer, people who answer the IQ test show a noticeable increase in intelligence.
The special properties of Mozart's music first came to public attention through pioneering research at the University of California in the early 1990s. At the Irvine Center for Neuroscience, which studies the processes of pedagogy and memory, a group of researchers began to study the impact of Mozart's music on students and adolescents. Frances X. Rauscher, Ph.D., and her colleagues conducted a study that tested university psychology graduates on the Spatial Intelligence Index (on the standard Stanford-da-Binet intelligence scale). The result was 8-9 points higher for the subjects who listened to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major for ten minutes. Although the effect of listening to music lasted only ten to fifteen minutes, Dr. Rauscher's group concluded that the relationship between music and spatial thinking is so strong that just listening to music can have a significant effect.
The power of Mozart's music
"Mozart's music can 'warm up the brain,'" suggested Gordon Shaw, a theoretical physicist and one of the researchers, after the results were announced. - We hypothesize that complex music excites equally complex neural patterns that are associated with higher forms of mental activity such as mathematics and chess. Conversely, simple and monotonous intrusive music can have the opposite effect.”
Mozart's music is extraordinary - neither fast nor slow, flowing but not boring, and charming in its simplicity. This musical phenomenon, which has not yet been fully explained, is called the "Mozart Effect".
Popular French actor Gerard Depardieu experienced it to the fullest. The fact is that young Zhezhe, who came to conquer Paris, did not speak French well and also stuttered. The famous doctor Alfred Tomatis advised Gerard every day for at least two hours... to listen to Mozart! "Magic Flute" can really work wonders - a few months later Depardieu spoke as he sang.
The uniqueness and extraordinary power of Mozart's music is most likely due to his life, especially the circumstances that accompanied his birth. Mozart was conceived in a rare environment. His prenatal existence was a daily immersion in the world of music. The violin of the father sounded in the house, which, of course, had a tremendous impact on the development of the nervous system and the awakening of cosmic rhythms even in the womb. His father was a bandmaster, conductor of choirs and musical chapels in Salzburg, and his mother, the daughter of a musician, played a huge role in his musical development. She sang songs and serenades even at the stage of pregnancy. Mozart was born literally molded from music.
Experiments to study the phenomenon are based on the assumption that music affects the brain at the anatomical level, making it more mobile. For children, it can have a profound effect on the formation of neural networks and the mental development of the child.
Far-reaching conclusions have been drawn from the results of research, especially in relation to the upbringing of children, whose first three years of life are considered decisive for their future intelligence.
Numerous opponents, trying to prove experimentally that no "Mozart effect" exists, regularly come to the conclusion that their judgments are wrong.
Recently, another skeptic has changed his mind about Mozart's music. Eric Seigel of Elmhurst College in Illinois used a spatial reasoning test to do this. The subjects had to look at two letters E, one of which rotated at an angle with respect to the other. And the larger the angle, the more difficult it was to determine whether the letters were the same or different. The milliseconds spent by the subject comparing letters were the measure that determined the level of the subject's spatial thinking. To Seigel's surprise, those subjects who listened to Mozart before the test identified the letters much more accurately.
The researchers concluded that regardless of the tastes or previous experience of the listeners, Mozart's music invariably produced a calming effect on them, improved spatial perception and the ability to more clearly and clearly express themselves in the process of communication. The rhythms, melodies and high frequencies of Mozart's music have been proven to stimulate and load the creative and motivational areas of the brain.
Mozart's genius
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 in the Austrian city of Salzburg. Mozart's musical genius manifested itself already in early childhood, He wrote his first symphony when he was not yet 10 years old, and his first successful opera by the age of 12. In his short life (Mozart died at the age of 35), the composer created 40 symphonies, 22 operas and more than five hundred works in other genres. He spent 10 of the 35 years of his life traveling to more than 200 cities in Europe.
During his short life, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart created hundreds of solo and orchestral pieces of music that inspired Beethoven, Wagner and other composers.
“Mozart is something incomprehensible in music,” Goethe told his friend Johann-Peter Eckermann, “it is an image that embodies a demon: so alluring that everyone aspires to him, and so great that no one can reach him” .
How are myths created? Can a myth be monetized? Debriefing on the example of the myth of the "Mozart Effect".
The origin of the myth:
In the 50s of the last century, the French physician Alfred A. Tomatis put forward a hypothesis about the possibility of influencing the human brain through his hearing. He suggested that the smooth thirty-second transitions from "forte" (loudly) to "piano" (quietly), which Mozart used in his works, coincide with the biorhythms in the cerebral hemispheres. In 1991, his book Why Mozart? was published. In it, he suggested that music can develop and heal the brain. It was in this book that he introduced the concept of the Mozart Effect.
Recognizing the myth as reality:
In 1993, researchers Francis Rauscher and David Shaw of Columbia University studied the influence of Mozart's music on human spatial thinking. They played several Mozart sonatas to a group of test subjects, after which they asked them to take a standard spatial reasoning test. The test results showed an improvement in spatial thinking, i.e. increasing the concentration of attention and the speed of solving the proposed tasks. But this effect persisted only for 15 minutes. The results of this study were published in the journal Nature. At the same time, the researchers did not make any statements about the improvement in IQ in general.
Popularization of the myth
Although Rauscher and Shaw's study showed only a short-term improvement in spatial reasoning, their results were interpreted by the public and the media as "improvements in overall brain function." In 1994, music columnist Alex Ross wrote an article in the New York Times titled: "Researchers Find That Listening to Mozart Actually Makes You Smarter." And in 1997, about the results of the study
Rauscher and Shaw were mentioned by the Boston Globe.
Monetization of the myth:
In 1997, Don Campbell published The Mozart Effect: The Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind, and Unleash the Creative Spirit. In his book, he argued that listening to Mozart's music (especially piano concertos) not only improves brain function and makes a person smarter, but also has a beneficial effect on overall mental state. Following the first book, he immediately wrote the second - The Mozart Effect for Children. In this book, he recommended playing classical music to babies to improve their mental development. Referring to the study of Rauscher and Shaw, Campbell presented his statements as already proven scientific facts.
In fact, he argued that Mozart's works are magical "pills for everything." They can be used to relieve stress and depression, to relax and improve memory, to treat dyslexia, autism and other mental and physical disorders. In addition, he assured that he knew exactly what works of Mozart should be listened to for: “deep rest and rejuvenation”, “development of the intellect and learning”, “development of creativity and imagination”. Simultaneously with the release of books, he released a collection of audio CDs with a "correct" selection of Mozart's works.
As a result, Campbell created a new market that exploited the consumer's belief in the existence of a "universal cure". The goods on the market were books and collections of music, published first by Campbell, and then by his followers.
Heavy artillery:
On January 13, 1998, Zel Miller, candidate for governor of the state of Georgia (USA), in his speech to voters, announced that his state budget proposal would include $ 105,000 a year to provide every child born in the state with a cassette or disk with recording classical music.
Myth debunking:
In 1999, two groups of researchers raised the question: Does the "Mozart Effect" really exist? In the article “Prelude or Requiem on the Mozart Effect”, based on an analysis of the results of several studies, Chabris reported: “any improvement in spatial thinking attributed to the Mozart Effect is too small and does not reflect changes in IQ or the ability to think logically in general. However, such an improvement can help solve one specific problem. But this is due to a common phenomenon in neuropsychology - stimulants of pleasure and the "Mozart Effect" has nothing to do with it.
The German government, in turn, also conducted a special study on the study of the "Mozart Effect". In their report, they concluded: "... listening to Mozart or any other music that you like will not make you smarter ..."
Francis Rauscher, whose results were published in the journal Nature and who actually started it all, was one of the first researchers to deny the influence of Mozart's music on improving brain function in general. In 1999, in response to another article about the "Mozart Effect", he wrote: "The results of our study on the influence of Mozart's sonata K.448 on the spatio-temporal performance of the task caused not only great interest, but also several misconceptions ...".
The myth is dead, long live the myth.
Despite the fact that the existence of the "Mozart Effect" in the scientific community was refuted a long time ago, the market created by Campbell is not only still alive, but also successfully developing.
For the query "Mozart effect" search engines give out a lot of offers to buy books and CDs. On sites for expectant mothers, you can not only buy a selection of discs with the Mozart Effect, but also sign up for a seminar on this topic. "Experienced psychologists", for a moderate fee, offer their services in the selection of individual music programs for relaxation, memory improvement and treatment of mental disorders.
http://professionali.ru/Blogs/Post/22869024/
What did Mozart leave us, besides the aesthetic enjoyment of his masterpieces? Scientists all over the world believe that Mozart's music enhances the ability of the intellect and improves health. Even plants and cows are not indifferent to it.
One German company proposed to influence the music of Mozart on wastewater. We invite you to get acquainted with the results of observations and studies of the so-called "Mozart effect".
Intellectual ability
This term was first introduced in 1995 by scientists at the University of California. They found that students tested for spatial reasoning showed higher IQs after listening to Mozart's music. Similar studies have been done with minimalist and trance music, relaxation teams, and audiobooks, but found no effect.
Scientists Gordon Shaw, Katherine Kay, and Francis Roche of the Center for the Neuroscience of Learning and Memory wrote in a report published in Neuroscience Letters that “36 students listened to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos, K.448, for 10 minutes. As a result, they scored 8 to 9 points on the Stanford-Binet IQ test for spatial reasoning more than they did after listening to silence or recordings of relaxation commands. The duration of the audition was only 10-15 minutes.
A study of 79 students also showed "a marked improvement in the group listening to Mozart compared to the group listening to silence and the group listening to other types of music. The researchers concluded that "the cortex's response to music may be the Rosetta Stone for the 'code' or language of a higher brain function."
Milk products
The Spanish periodical El Mundo reported in 2007 that cows on a farm in Villanueva del Pardillo produce 30-35 liters of milk per day, while on other farms on other farms, only 28 liters per cow. Farm owner Hans Peter Sieber admitted that his 700 Friesian cows listen to Mozart's Concerto for flute and harp during milking. He also claimed that since Mozart was played to cows, milk had become sweeter.
Monks from Brittany, France, according to ABC, were the first to discover the positive effects of Mozart's music on cows. Nowadays, on farms from England to Israel, cows are given classical music to listen to.
Impact on the health of premature babies
The journal Pediatrics in 2010 published a study by Israeli scientists, from which it followed that Mozart helps premature babies gain weight faster. At the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, 20 premature babies were given Mozart music for 30 minutes on two days in a row. They then compared their weight gain with those of infants who did not listen to any music.
Doctors found that children who listened to music became calmer, and this led to a decrease in resting energy expenditure (REP).
In their article, the researchers concluded that “in healthy preterm infants, listening to Mozart's music significantly reduces REP. We believe that accelerated weight gain as a result of the Mozart effect can be partly explained by the influence of music on RAP.”
Cleaning of drains
In 2010, a wastewater treatment plant near Berlin tested a Mozart sound system made by the German company Mundus. The music from The Magic Flute was played for biomass-eating microbes. The experiment at the plant lasted several months and was suspended. But, a year later, when the time came to clear the sediment from the tanks, it turned out that instead of the usual 7000 cubic meters. sludge, it was required to take out only 6000.
Wastewater specialist Detlef Dalichow told the Märkische Allgemeine newspaper that "we had to take away much less sludge."
In this way, the company saved 10,000 euros on the cost of sludge removal. Mundus claims to make every effort to ensure that their speakers accurately reproduce the sound quality of a concert hall.
plant growth
In the 1970s, studies were carried out on the effect of various types of music on plants. Some music influenced them well, from the other they died. However, Mozart's music was preferable for plants.
For the first time, experiments on the effect of music on plants were carried out by student Dorothy Retallack in 1973 in the laboratory of biotron control of Colorado State College. She let the plants listen to the music of two different radio stations. Rock sounded in the first room for three hours a day. In the second, the radio played light music for three hours a day.
Under the influence of light music, the plants grew healthy, their stems reaching for the radio. Heavy music, rock, suppressed them, the leaves grew small, turning away from the speakers. Long and ugly sprouts, for the most part, died after 16 days.
Retallack has experimented with many different styles of music. Plants fell in love with Bach's organ music and jazz. They turned their backs on Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix.
It turned out that most of all the plants liked classical Indian music played on the sitar. They were absolutely indifferent to country music.
Vine
Vineyard owner and music lover Carlo Cignozzi decided to find an ecological way to control grape pests. In 2001, he installed speakers in his 24-acre vineyard in Tuscany. Around the clock, the plants listened to classical music, including Mozart. Carlo Cignozzi noticed that the vines grew better.
Grapes located closer to the speakers ripened faster. Inspired by his success, Chignozzi gave grapes classical music to listen to, protecting them from rock or pop music.
The baton of research was picked up by scientists from the University of Florence. In 2006, university staff conducted an experiment.
The vines that enjoyed the melodies, as the professor of agronomic sciences Stefano Mancuso said, ripened faster than those that were not allowed to listen to music. Music had a beneficial effect on the growth of the vine and the total area of \u200b\u200bthe foliage.
Rats in the maze
Francis Rocher, who participated in the first studies of the Mozart effect in 1995, continued her experiments in 1998 with a group of rats. They were exposed to Mozart's music in the womb, and 60 days after birth. As it turned out, these rats went through the maze faster than those who grew up in silence or listened to the music of the minimalist composer Philip Glass, as well as white noise.
The results of experiments conducted at the University of Wisconsin were published in the journal Neurological Research. They showed that “on the third day of exposure to Mozart's music, the experimental animals completed the maze faster, making fewer mistakes than other rats. The difference in results became significantly greater on the fifth day. This suggests that prolonged exposure to complex music improves spatial-temporal learning in rats, which is similar to the results observed in humans.”
Louis Macchiello, Epoch Times
(Translation from English)
Since ancient times, scientists have known about the influence of music on humans. Music calmed and healed. But special attention to its impact on human brain activity arose at the end of the 20th century. Research by the American scientist Don Campbell determined that classical music can not only heal, but also increase intellectual abilities. This effect was called the "Mozart effect",
because the music of this composer has the strongest influence.
Various studies have been conducted that have shown that even ten minutes of listening to Mozart's music increases the IQ by 9 units. In addition, it improves memory, attention, and math skills. This has been tested on students whose test scores improved after listening to it.
Why does this music have such an impact? The Mozart effect arises because this composer maintains loudness intervals in his works that correspond to the biocurrents of the human brain. And the sound range of this music corresponds most of all. In addition, Mozart wrote mainly in major tones, which is why his works so attract listeners and facilitate the work of the brain.
For many years, experiments have been conducted on the influence of music on children. The Mozart effect is that its smooth and charming music has a calming effect, improves mood and stimulates the creativity of the brain. When children under the age of three often listen to this music, they develop better. It improves speech, learning abilities, coordination of movements and calms nervous overexcitation.
The Mozart effect for newborns is also proven. Listening to his music before
birth, children are born calmer, less irritable, they have more developed speech. Such children are easier to calm down, and they are better trained. In addition, if you turn it on during childbirth, then they proceed much easier.
Scientists have conducted numerous studies on the influence of classical music on animals and plants. The Mozart effect extends to them as well. For example, plants produce more crops, cows have higher milk yields, and perform better on mental tests.
There are a lot of examples when listening healed people from many diseases. For example, the Mozart effect helped Gerard
Depardieu to recover from stuttering. Listening to this composer's sonatas can help Alzheimer's patients and reduce the intensity of epileptic seizures.
Mozart's music is used in the treatment of neurological diseases, to improve fine motor skills of the hands. It improves hearing, memory and speech, and also helps to cope with mental problems. What is it connected with?
Scientists believe that Mozart's music has this effect because it contains a lot of high frequency sounds. They resonate with the frequencies of the human brain and improve thinking. These sounds have also been proven to strengthen ear muscles and improve memory.
We subjected these animals [rats] in the womb and sixty days after birth to various types of auditory stimulation, and then brought them into the spatial labyrinth. And, of course, the animals that were subjected to the Mozart effect completed the maze faster and with fewer mistakes. Now we dissect animals and study their brains to neuro-anatomically accurately identify what specifically changed in the brain from this impact. It is possible that intense exposure to music has similar effects on the spatial regions of the brain's hippocampus. – Dr. Francis Rauscher
That children's experiences in their early years ultimately determine their scholastic abilities, their future careers, and their ability to form love relationships is hardly supported by neuroscience. — John Brewer
The Mozart effect is a term coined by Alfred A. Tomatis for the supposed enhancement of brain development that occurs in children under the age of 3 when they listen to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The idea for the Mozart effect originated in 1993 at the University of California, Irvine, with physicist Gordon Shaw and Francis Rauscher, a former cellist and cognitive development specialist. They studied the impact on several dozen students of the first 10 minutes of Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (op. 448). They found a temporal improvement in space-time thinking, as measured by the Stanford-Binet scale. Numerous attempts have been made to replicate these results, but most have failed (Willingham 2006). One of the researchers noted that “the best that can be said about the results of their study is that listening to Mozart records increases IQ for a short time” (Linton). Rauscher went on to study the effects of the Mozart effect on rats. Shaw and Rauscher believe that listening to Mozart improves spatial reasoning and memory in humans.
In 1997, Rauscher and Shaw announced that they had scientific evidence that piano and singing instruction was superior to computer instruction in developing children's abstract thinking skills.
The experiment included three groups of preschoolers: one group received private piano and singing lessons, the second group received private computer lessons, and the third group received no training. Those children who received piano training scored 34% higher on tests of space-time ability than others. These results show that music unambiguously develops the higher brain functions required for learning mathematics, chess, science and technology (Neurological Research, February 1997).
The show and Rauscher kick-started an entire industry. In addition, they created their own institute: the Neuro-Institute for Musical Development of the Intellect (MIND). They do numerous studies to prove the amazing effects of music, they even set up a website to keep track of all the news regarding these studies.
Shaw and Rauscher allege that their work has been misrepresented. In fact, they showed "that there are structures of neurons that fire one after the other and that there seem to be regions of the brain that respond to certain frequencies." This is not the same as showing that listening to Mozart increases intelligence in children. However, Shaw is not going to wait for more convincing evidence, because even without this he does not lack in parents who want to increase the IQ of their own children. He released a book as well as a CD titled Remember Mozart. This disc can be ordered and purchased from the Shaw Institute. He and his colleagues believe that since spatiotemporal thinking plays an essential role in solving cognitive problems, stimulating areas of the brain associated with it during exercise will increase a person's abilities. Shaw and his staff are selling a special computer program that, with the help of a lively cartoon penguin, promotes the development of spatial thinking in everyone.
Shaw and Rauscher gave rise to an entire industry, but the media and non-critical people have created an alternative science that supports this industry. Exaggerated and false claims about the impact of music have become so hackneyed that trying to correct them would be a waste of time. For example, Jamal Munshi, a university business administrator from Sonoma County, collects poignant news about misinformation and gullibility. He posts them on his website under the heading "Strange but true." There is information about the experiments of Shaw and Rauscher, which demonstrated that listening to a Mozart sonata "increases the student's scientific and technical ability score by 51 points." In fact, Shaw and Rauscher handed out test papers to 36 UCLA students and found that when listening to Mozart music, participants showed a temporary improvement of 8-9% in their personal performance compared to a similar test given after listening to relaxation music. (The Munshi also claims that science cannot explain how flies fly. Scientists are working on this important problem, so we have to give them credit. Some even claim to know how insects fly.)
Don Campbell, supporter of the views of Carlos Castaneda and P.T. Barnum, exaggerates and distorts the work of Shaw, Rauscher and others to his advantage. He has trademarked the expression "The Mozart Effect" and sells himself and his products at www.mozarteffect.com. Campbell claims that the blood clot in his brain dissipated thanks to prayers and an imaginary vibrating hand inside the right side of the skull. Gullible proponents of alternative medicine do not question this claim, although it is one of the claims that cannot be proven or disproven. He could also argue that the clot was dissolved thanks to the angels. (I wonder why he had a blood clot if music has such a good effect on a person. Maybe he listened to rap?)
Campbell's claims about the impact of music are reminiscent of the rococo style in color. And like Rococo, they are just as artificial. (Campbell claims that music can cure all ills.) He presents his evidence in narrative form and misinterprets it. Some of his results are absolutely fantastic.
All his arguments collapse at the slightest intervention of common sense. If Mozart's music can improve health, why did Mozart himself get sick often? If listening to Mozart's music improves the intellect, why aren't the smartest people among the Mozart connoisseurs?
The lack of evidence for the Mozart effect has not stopped Campbell from becoming the favorite of the naive and gullible audiences to whom he lectures.
When McCall's needs advice on how to get rid of sadness with music, when PBS wants to interview an expert on how voice can energize you, when IBM needs a consultant on how to use music to increase productivity, when the National Association cancer survivors need a speaker who can talk about the healing role of music, they turn to Campbell. (Campbell site)
The governors of Tennessee and Georgia have established a program whereby a CD of Mozart is given to every newborn. The Florida State Legislature passed a law requiring that classical music be played every day in state-funded childcare facilities. Hundreds of hospitals received free classical music CDs in May 1999 from the National Recording Academy and the Science Foundation. It is unlikely that these good intentions are based on solid research that classical music enhances a child's intelligence or speeds up the healing process in adults.
According to Kenneth Steele, professor of psychology at Appalachian State University, and John Brewer, director of the James McDonnell Foundation in St. Louis, listening to Mozart's music does not actually affect intellectual performance or health. Steele and her colleagues Karen Bass and Melissa Crook claim they relied on Shaw and Rauscher's reports but couldn't "find any effect" even though their study included 125 students. They concluded that "there is very little evidence to support the implementation of programs based on the existence of the Mozart effect." Their study, published in July 1999. Two years later, some researchers reported in the same journal that the observed effects were associated with "higher mood and arousal" (Willingham 2006).
In his book The Myth of the First Three Years, Brewer criticizes not only the Mozart effect, but also several other myths based on misinterpretations of recent brain research.
The Mozart effect is an example of how science and media are intertwined in our world. A paragraph-long report in a scientific journal becomes a universal truth within a few months, believed even by scientists who know how the media can distort and distort results. Others, smelling money, go over to the side of the winner, adding their own myths, dubious claims and distortions to the common piggy bank. Then many credulous supporters close their ranks and come out in defense of the faith, because the future of our children is at stake. We happily buy books, cassettes, CDs, etc. Soon, millions believe in the myth, considering it to be a scientific fact. Then the process encounters a slight critical resistance, because we already know that music can affect feelings and moods. Then why shouldn't it affect intelligence and health, at least a little and temporarily? It's just common sense, isn't it? Yes, and one more reason for skepticism.
