Researchers Report That Listening to Mozart Won’t Improve Intelligence

People seeking to improve their intelligence by listening to Mozart may be wasting their time, researchers report in today’s Nature. Six years ago, University of Wisconsin psychologist Frances Rauscher conducted an experiment that showed college students who listened to Mozart’s Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos improved their reasoning and scores on spatial learning tests. The findings led to renewed interest in the composer, and many parents exposed their children to classical music while still in the womb or after birth in an attempt to improve the intelligence of their offspring.

Chris Chabris of Harvard University and his colleagues analyzed 17 studies on the “Mozart effect.” They found that any improvement in cognitive or reasoning ability was small and did not result in an improvement in intelligence.

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Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II