There is an alchemy to science. Sometimes, when the conditions are just right, the results of tiny, preliminary studies are transformed into truisms that spread the world over. For example, everyone knows that you鈥檙e either left-brained or right-brained鈥 except that that is false. What is true is that some brain functions tend to involve one half of the brain more than the other, but the idea that scientists are left-brained while artists are right-brained is nonsense. Yet, the belief endures. When science goes public, it can become magic.
The Mozart effect is a scientific legend. It鈥檚 the idea that playing Mozart鈥檚 music to a baby will make them smart. We know it isn鈥檛 true. But it started with a nugget of science back in 1993. What happened next is a cautionary tale for how these legends spread. The media half-remembers the study and twists its findings, and the story starts morphing in the telling until it finds a shape the public views as desirable.
This is a story of scientists hounded by the media, trying to evade death threats. It is also about how scientific studies are portrayed as sacred rituals when they fail to replicate.
But most importantly, it鈥檚 about how minimalist composer Philip Glass鈥 music was unfairly demonized in an attempt to prove a theory.
Can you unfold this piece of paper in your mind?
I have to warn you: the origin of the Mozart effect is profoundly disappointing. If you are expecting rows of newborns in their bassinets listening to Don Giovanni and being followed for decades to see how they score on IQ tests, you will not believe how this legend actually got its start.
The year is 1993 and the publication is the prestigious academic journal . The whole study takes up about two thirds of a single page. Three scientists at the University of California, Irvine鈥擣rances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw, and Katherine Ky鈥攑ut 36 college students through a little experiment. They had them listen to ten minutes of Mozart鈥檚 sonata for two pianos in D major (K.488), then do a task. They then played ten minutes from a relaxation tape, followed by a similar task. Finally, they let them sit in silence for ten minutes before asking them to complete a similar task again. The order of these three parts was shuffled, but it didn鈥檛 make a difference: performance was greatest after listening to Mozart.
What was the task? It was an excerpt from the Stanford-Binet intelligence test, specifically questions having to do with manipulating objects in three dimensions in your mind (i.e. spatial reasoning). Students were shown, for example, images of a piece of paper that was folded in multiple ways sequentially, with corners cut out, and they had to imagine what would happen if you would unfold this piece of paper. They were asked to find the correct shape out of a list of multiple choices. The researchers would later claim their study had nothing to do with intelligence as a whole or IQ tests, but the building blocks were there. They used a well-known intelligence test and they even converted their students鈥 scores into 鈥淚Q equivalents,鈥 writing that 鈥渢he IQs of subjects participating in the music condition were 8-9 points above their IQ scores in the other two conditions.鈥 The last paragraph cautions the reader: this effect did not last beyond 10 to 15 minutes.
Dr. Rauscher later told that the first phone call she received about her study was from the Associated Press. Immediately, this tiny study conducted in a few dozen students reporting a temporary benefit had escaped the ivory tower. She was interviewed by Tom Brokaw on the nightly news and had to hire an assistant to manage her incoming calls. When she was misquoted in the media as implying that listening to rock music wasn鈥檛 good for your brain, she started receiving death threats, which led her to unlist her phone number.
The media played a very important role in the alchemical transformation of this study into the Mozart effect we are now familiar with. Two Stanford scientists later how journalists covered this story over time: in the year following the publication of the 1993 study, 80% of its media coverage mentioned 鈥渃ollege students鈥濃 but after 2000, it was down to 30%. From 1997 onwards, more news articles mentioned infants than college students when reporting on the Mozart effect, even though it had not been tested on infants. That year, though, Rauscher and Shaw published the results of in which children received musical training, and that increased their ability to move shapes around in space. But they weren鈥檛 infants and they weren鈥檛 listening to Mozart; they were learning to play the piano.
Why were we told that scientists had found that babies listening to Mozart would get smarter? Because that鈥檚 what people wanted to believe.
How college students became babies
In , Cl茅mentine Beauvais, who holds a doctorate in education, looked at the Mozart effect through a lens I am less familiar with: sociology. What was in the proverbial soil in the 1990s that allowed this legend to grow, she asked herself.
The film Amadeus, which won a slew of prizes including the Academy Award for Best Picture, was released in 1984 and the bicentenary of Mozart鈥檚 death was celebrated in 1991. You could say the public had Mozart on the mind. Not only that, but the Space Race of the 1950s and 60s had made Americans anxious about their ability to raise brilliant children who would excel later in life, and President George H. W. Bush declared the 1990s the Decade of the Brain. Mozart was seen as an intellectual and artistic aspiration: nudged into brilliance by his father Leopold, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the only composer whom we spontaneously imagine as a child, whose classical music is at once upper class and appealing to the masses. Like the relics of saints or the violins of master musicians, Mozart鈥檚 music became, in the 90s, a form of 鈥渃ontagious magic,鈥 as Beauvais puts it. It contained his genius, and by playing it back, worried parents could ensure the future success of their progeny.
The Mozart effect mutated into borderline lunacy. In 1998, the State of Georgia passed a bill to distribute a free classical music CD or cassette tape (not exclusively Mozart鈥檚 music) to new mothers. Georgia鈥檚 governor at the time, Zell Miller, is a perfect example of the magical thinking present here. He played an excerpt from 鈥淥de to Joy鈥 to lawmakers prior to the bill passing, asking them , 鈥渟mart enough to vote for this budget item.鈥 The only problem is that 鈥淥de to Joy鈥 was not composed by Mozart, but by Beethoven. Miller himself had focused his bill on 鈥渟patial, temporal reasoning,鈥 clearly influenced by the 1993 study that birthed the Mozart effect, but he got the composer wrong. Mozart鈥檚 music has been played in one Korean amusement park to encourage . We are far from that 1993 study.
Governor Miller鈥檚 CD was financed by the state, but others were profiting from Mozart鈥檚 brain-shaping magic. Music teacher Don Campbell the phrase 鈥淢ozart effect鈥 and released a number of products, including books and CDs, claiming Mozart鈥檚 music had the power to heal the body, while William and Julie Clark came up with consumer goods under names like and 鈥淏aby Einstein,鈥 the latter of which was sold to Disney in . (The brand is now owned by Kids II, Inc.)
While this public-facing alchemy was taking place, scientists were trying to replicate the precious findings first published in 1993. What happened in academia is a reflection of the work the media did on this story: turning experiments into a sacred ritual.
Getting the recipe right
Many researchers tried to reproduce the Mozart effect study in one way or another, and in 1999, the journal Nature published . Listening to ten minutes of Mozart鈥檚 music did not enhance general intelligence, although there was a small improvement in a person鈥檚 ability to transform visual images in their mind, the effect that had been claimed in the original study. But this was one specific task, and the effect was much smaller than originally reported and not even statistically significant. You get more variation in the results from testing someone鈥檚 IQ multiple times. The authors concluded that a requiem may be in order for the Mozart effect.
The debate, however, did not abate in the pages of the scientific literature. Frances Rauscher said that some studies did vindicate her original finding, while some did not. 鈥淏ecause some people cannot get bread to rise,鈥 she , 鈥渄oes not negate the existence of a 鈥榶east effect.鈥欌 Many scientists, perhaps influenced by the media coverage, were testing their participants for increases in general intelligence, but that had never been the Mozart effect; it had to do with the ability to unfold complex shapes in your mind, and it wasn鈥檛 meant to last very long. Scientists who didn鈥檛 believe in the effect argued that students were simply enjoying Mozart鈥檚 music more, which gave them a boost when filling out the test. The counter-argument was that it had seemingly worked on epileptic patients in a coma (more on that later) and in rats listening to Mozart in their mother鈥檚 womb.
Rauscher to criticize many studies that failed to replicate her original finding: they hadn鈥檛 used the right kind of visuospatial task, and the researchers hadn鈥檛 prompted their participants to 鈥渓isten carefully鈥 before the music played. While getting the details right is important in reproducibility work, it started to feel like this famous experiment was a ritual that had to be performed just right to detect its miraculous outcome.
It's fair to say that by 2010 we had our answer. The done on this topic came up empty. Interestingly enough, its authors found that the studies done by Rauscher and others in her close circle reported a Mozart effect more than three times as big as studies done by other groups. But the topic itself could reliably be put to bed.
Except that legends never truly die, and the Mozart effect has now shifted to being portrayed as a boon to people dealing with epilepsy. The link isn鈥檛 new and dates back to , at the height of the Mozart effect, and involves one of the original trio of researchers. recent of the data, however, show that the studies are not very good, and most come from a single group of researchers. Listening to Mozart 鈥渕ay,鈥 we are told, reduce seizures in people with epilepsy, but I would not trust such preliminary results.
Journalists certainly played an important role in the crafting of this scientific legend, but researchers themselves shouldn鈥檛 be left off the hook. When faced with questionable results from tiny studies, many started hypothesizing how Mozart鈥檚 music might influence the brain before considering that it probably 诲颈诲苍鈥檛. I read that the 鈥渟uperior architecture鈥 of the Classical composer鈥檚 music (like a cathedral!) would resonate with the 鈥渟uperorganization of the cerebral cortex鈥 to normalize any suboptimal brain functions. When minimalist composer Philip Glass鈥 own music was used in studies in opposition to Mozart鈥檚, it was as 鈥渘onenhancing鈥 and 鈥減redictable,鈥 too repetitive, even unpleasant. Without his consent, Glass鈥 award-winning music was transformed by laboratory scientists as Mozart鈥檚 enemy, the simpleton to Mozart鈥檚 sophisticate.
There are many scientific legends like the Mozart effect. I still hear people talk about the French paradox鈥斺渉ow come French people have less heart disease than the Americans even though they eat a lot of saturated fats? could it be the wine they drink?鈥 鈥攅ven though this myth has been . These legends spread in part because the media covers them uncritically. When writing a post-mortem on the Mozart effect, Adrian Bangerter and Chip Heath from Stanford University explained that there are to how the media reported on the Mozart effect. First, there was short-lived interest. Then, stable interest and endorsement of the effect. Finally, there were the 鈥漴emember when we used to believe the Mozart effect was real?鈥 pieces. The effect was now clearly clich茅d and ridiculous. The authors write, 鈥淲e find it ironic that, only a few years after enthusiastically reporting the Mozart effect, media discourse switched to skepticism and incredulous reminiscences.鈥 As has been pointed out, if Mozart鈥檚 music truly delivered a spike in intelligence, the world鈥檚 smartest people would be the Mozart specialists.
You can absolutely play Mozart鈥檚 sonata for two pianos in D major to your newborn. It is a lively yet restrained piece from the Classical period. It has none of the brash drama that the Romantics would later bring to music, but it has its own exuberance and makes for a good listen. But you can also let your baby listen to Philip Glass鈥 film scores for The Hours or Roving Mars. (You can keep Notes on a Scandal to yourself: too much anxiety in this masterful score.) None of it will turn your progeny into geniuses. But music for the sake of music is good for the spirit.
Take-home message:
- The Mozart effect is often portrayed as the idea that playing Mozart鈥檚 music (or simply classical music) to a baby will make them smart
- The original study into this was done in a few dozen college students. The effect was short-lived and was not even a boost in general intelligence, but in a very specific type of mental exercise
- Studies of studies have since shown that the effect was never real
