Elsevier

Intelligence

Volume 38, Issue 3, May–June 2010, Pages 314-323
Intelligence

Mozart effect–Shmozart effect: A meta-analysis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2010.03.001Get rights and content

Abstract

The transient enhancement of performance on spatial tasks in standardized tests after exposure to the first movement “allegro con spirito” of the Mozart sonata for two pianos in D major (KV 448) is referred to as the Mozart effect since its first observation by Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky (1993). These findings turned out to be amazingly hard to replicate, thus leading to an abundance of conflicting results. Sixteen years after initial publication we conduct the so far largest, most comprehensive, and up-to-date meta-analysis (nearly 40 studies, over 3000 subjects), including a diversity of unpublished research papers to finally clarify the scientific record about whether or not a specific Mozart effect exists. We could show that the overall estimated effect is small in size (d = 0.37, 95% CI [0.23, 0.52]) for samples exposed to the Mozart sonata KV 448 and samples that had been exposed to a non-musical stimulus or no stimulus at all preceding spatial task performance. Additionally, calculation of effect sizes for samples exposed to any other musical stimulus and samples exposed to a non-musical stimulus or no stimulus at all yielded effects similar in strength (d = 0.38, 95% CI [0.13, 0.63]), whereas there was a negligible effect between the two music conditions (d = 0.15, 95% CI [0.02, 0.28]). Furthermore, formal tests yielded evidence for confounding publication bias, requiring downward correction of effects. The central finding of the present paper however, is certainly the noticeably higher overall effect in studies performed by Rauscher and colleagues than in studies performed by other researchers, indicating systematically moderating effects of lab affiliation. On the whole, there is little evidence left for a specific, performance-enhancing Mozart effect.

Introduction

The publication of the finding of Rauscher et al. (1993) that subjects score higher in standardized tests assessing spatial task performance after exposure to the first movement “allegro con spirito” of the Mozart sonata KV 448 for two pianos in D major (mean-differences of 8–9 IQ points in the spatial reasoning subtest of the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale) entailed vast interest in the scientific community, as well as in popular media. Although the Mozart effect was originally demonstrated in college students and employed tests measuring only spatial ability, popular media referring to this finding reported that exposure to Mozart music will somehow enhance the intelligence of children. The result of this fad was the development of a commercial industry, selling dozens of different records, tapes, and CDs of Mozart music, all of them supposed to have a positive impact on children's intelligence. The craze peaked as Georgia governor Zell Miller issued in 1998, that every mother of a newborn should get a free compact disc with Mozart music to foster their offspring's intelligence (R. Jones, 1999). There were even books published on how to stimulate the minds of kids using Mozart music to ensure IQs of children would develop to be above average (e.g., Campbell, 2002).

Nonetheless, in the scientific community, the original finding was heavily contested. In the majority of replications of this study, exposure to the Mozart sonata KV 448 showed only small enhancement of performance on spatial tasks compared to treatment conditions that had subjects waiting in silence (e.g., ⁎Gilleta et al., 2003, ⁎Jones & Estell, 2007) or had them exposed to non-musical stimuli (e.g., ⁎Flohr et al., 1995, ⁎Steele, Brown & Stoecker, 1999) for the same amount of time (usually 8 min 24 s) it took to administer the Mozart sonata. However, evidence in favor or against the Mozart effect seemed to be published roughly in equal parts, thus rendering primary studies powerless to resolve the issue whether or not the effect exists.

Chabris, 1999, Hetland, 2000 used meta-analytic methods to assess the effect and settle the dispute, but yielded contradictory results. The analysis of Chabris (1999) included only published studies, but additionally included studies employing reasoning tests as dependent measure. Thus, overall effect size for the effect of the Mozart sonata on spatial ability was based on only 15 study effects (d = 0.14). In the analysis performed by Hetland (2000), unpublished studies were included and only spatial ability tests were employed as dependent measure in each study, yielding 36 study effects (d = 0.46). However, musical stimuli in treatment conditions were not confined to the Mozart sonata, but any kind of (supposedly enhancing) musical stimulus was used for overall effect size estimation. Neither of these two analyses assessed influences of possibly confounding publication bias.

The present study represents the so far biggest meta-analysis (39 studies, yielding 38, 11, and 15 study effects for different treatment conditions) on this subject to answer the question whether or not there exists a Mozart effect. Since there is evidence that studies whose results do not support the research hypotheses are less likely to be published (Blumenthal et al., 1997, Ioannidis, 1998, Smith, 1980), influence of publication bias on the overall effect was hypothesized.

Section snippets

Literature search

To identify relevant studies, a comprehensive literature search in a variety of electronic databases was performed (Datenbank deutschsprachiger Diplomarbeiten Psychologie [database of theses in German language in Psychology], PsycINFO, PubMed, UMI Dissertations, and Web of Science). Entered search terms were “mozart”,“mozart AND effect”, “mozart AND effekt”,“music AND cognit*”, “music AND spatial”, “musik AND kognit*”, “musik AND raumvorstellung”, in order to assess studies of English- as well

Combined effect sizes

Overall standardized mean differences for three pairs of stimulus conditions on spatial task performance were obtained (Fig. 1). First, samples exposed to the Mozart sonata scored significantly higher on spatial tasks than samples exposed to non-musical stimuli or no stimulus at all (MO-NM) yielding d = 0.37 (p < .001, 95% CI [0.23, 0.52], 38 study effects). Second, samples exposed to the Mozart sonata KV 448 scored significantly higher on spatial tasks than samples exposed to any other kind of

Discussion

This study clearly demonstrates that there is only little support for a specific Mozart effect in published as well as in unpublished work. Although results indicate a positive, significant effect of exposure to the Mozart sonata (KV 448) compared to no stimulus at all on spatial task performance, observed effects were only small in size. Moreover, exposure to other musical stimuli compared to exposure to no stimulus at all yielded a significant overall effect of about the same size. There is a

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      Citation Excerpt :

      This focus on Mozart may be driven by Rauscher and colleague’s reports of the “Mozart effect” (Rauscher et al., 1998, 1993), which was an increase in spatial abilities in humans and rats after listening to Mozart K.448. Since then, replicating the effect has been difficult (Steele et al., 1995) and a meta-analysis has suggested that the Mozart effect is negligible in humans (Pietschnig et al., 2010), but this has not deterred researchers from using Mozart K.448 in music welfare research (Li et al., 2021; Saghari et al., 2021). Choosing experimental stimuli based solely on what has been used in the past risks pseudoreplication and limits generalization of results.

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    References marked with an asterisk indicate studies included in the meta-analysis.

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