The healing effect of Wolfgang Mozart. The Mozart Effect: The Impact of Music on Child Development
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The power of music has been known for a long time; it can influence mood, evoke different emotions. Each person has their own "ideal" melody, and musical preferences are different for everyone.
Aesthetic pleasure is not the only plus musical works... There are melodies that can not only lift your mood, but also improve mental capacity, make the brain work more efficiently.
Have special power classical works, and the concept of the Mozart effect is still being studied. The hypothesis that the music of the great composer causes increased brain work.
And in childhood contributes to the formation of new synapses or connections in the brain continues to be studied by scientists today. The Mozart effect for children has been proven to be effective.
What is the miraculous effect?
Through various studies, scientists have found that, for example, rats, which were turned on the music of Mozart, passed the winding maze better than their counterparts, who lived in silence.
And university students coped with the testing more successfully than their classmates who listened to popular songs or were in silence.
During the study of the brain by magnetic resonance, it was found that certain parts of the brain respond to musical accompaniment, but only the works of Mozart elicited a response from the whole brain.
Surprisingly, the fact is that the "Mozart effect" exists and allows parents to early years use this additional method for successful development children.
Some researchers make assumptions that such a unique feature of these particular melodies stems from the fact that the composer himself began his career very early, at the age of 4, Mozart began to compose. It is possible that, on some intuitive level, he created works that in their frequencies and rhythms coincide with the biorhythms of the human brain.
Benefits for expectant mothers
Popular offer to start the process game learning from the cradle, that is, as early as possible. The "Mozart Effect" can help mothers start developing their baby while it is still in the womb.
It has long been known that being in the mother's tummy, the baby can perceive the words addressed to him, easily takes over the mother's emotions and, of course, hears the surrounding sounds.
Listening to the work of Mozart during pregnancy becomes an excellent start for the successful development of the little one and the relaxation of the woman herself.
At this moment, the baby is likely to respond vividly with movements. Such a pastime will definitely be beneficial in the future.
There is an opinion that the music that the baby often listened to while in the womb in life will become soothing for him. A pregnant woman can arrange musical breaks at any convenient time, making herself comfortable and enjoying wonderful sounds that will have a beneficial effect on her body and on the development of the baby.
In European countries, listening to classical works in maternity hospitals is also practiced, which, of course, has a positive effect on the condition of mothers and babies.
Benefits for toddlers
The power of music also manifests itself in medicinal properties... Application practice musical compositions the author during the recovery period of newborns after birth trauma, caesarean section, difficult childbirth or due to prematurity, it was noticed that the recovery process was faster.
Similar conclusions were made based on the readings of devices that track the vital processes of crumbs undergoing rehabilitation for one reason or another.
Keeping in mind the research carried out by many scientists, we can say that listening to the works of Mozart is useful to start as early as possible, because, as you know, the development of the human brain actively occurs before three years his age.
What influences Mozart's music
Scientists argue that music really affects the development of children. What exactly does such listening to Mozart's works affect:
- In addition to the obvious benefits of improving hearing, it has a beneficial effect on future speech abilities.
- Actively engages parts of the brain little man responsible for it creative potential, that is, it may affect exactly the area that in the future will give him a certain talent or skill.
- Children find it easier to calm down to these particular author's melodies, since they are very close to the timbre of the human voice.
- The activity of the brain increases, while listening, the entire brain is "turned on" and even those areas that are not subject to other works.
You can listen to the compositions at any time. It is worth relying only on your own feelings and the mood of the crumbs, because positive emotions will bring even greater productivity.
Definitely, you should not do this around the clock, it will be sufficient to turn on melodies during feeding, games. The process will be especially interesting if the mother and baby dance to the music or make it the background of their play activities.
Let's summarize
It is safe to say that the "Mozart effect" is not a myth, it really exists. The study continues today, but even now every mother can use such a wonderful "tool" as music to help her baby grow and develop to the fullest.
Of course, no researcher or teacher claims that if a child grew up without musical accompaniment, he will not become successful, talented or lose something in his development - no.
A person can develop almost all skills on his own, both in childhood and already at a conscious age, if he has sufficient perseverance, the desire to work in the direction he has chosen.
The music of a great genius can be a wonderful useful and pleasant addition. Listening to Mozart's compositions does not guarantee incredible result in learning and will not make the child a child prodigy, but, perhaps, will help him discover more resources for their further successful use.
This action will not take long and will not require almost any effort from the outside, so why not take the opportunity and enjoy the amazing effect right now.
I hope the article was useful for you.
Enjoy your music and be happy!
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Research shows 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 groundbreaking research at the University of California in the early 1990s. At the Irvine Neuroscience Center, which studies pedagogical and memory processes, a group of researchers began to study the impact of Mozart's music on students and adolescents. Francis H. Rauscher, Ph.D., and her colleagues conducted a study in which university graduates from the Department of Psychology were tested for the Spatial Intelligence Index (according to the Stanford-da-Binet Standard Intellectual 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 reasoning is so strong that even listening to music can have a significant effect.
The power of Mozart's music
"Mozart's music has the ability to" warm up the brain, "suggested Gordon Shaw, a theoretical physicist and co-researcher, after the results were announced. - We assume 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 obsessive music can have the opposite effect. "
Mozart has extraordinary music - not fast or slow, smooth, but not boring, and charming in its simplicity. This musical phenomenon, not yet fully explained, was called the "Mozart Effect".
Popular french actor Gerard Depardieu experienced it to the fullest. The fact is that young Jéger, who came to conquer Paris, did not speak French well ... and, moreover, stuttered. Renowned physician Alfred Tomatis advised Gerard every day for two hours at least ... listen to Mozart! "The Magic Flute" can really work wonders - after a few months 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 pre-natal existence was daily immersion in the world of music. Father's violin sounded in the house, which undoubtedly had a tremendous influence on the development of the nervous system and the awakening of cosmic rhythms while still in the womb. His father was a conductor, conductor of choral and music chapels in Salzburg, and his mother, the daughter of a musician, played a colossal role in his musical development... She sang songs and serenades during her pregnancy. Mozart was born literally sculpted out of music.
Experiments on the study of the phenomenon are based on the assumption that music affects the brain at the anatomical level, makes it more mobile. For children, it can have a profound effect on the formation of neural networks and the mental development of a child.
Far-reaching conclusions have been drawn from the results of the 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 experimentally prove that there is no "Mozart effect", regularly come to the conclusion that their judgments are erroneous.
Recently, another skeptic changed his mind about Mozart's music. Eric Seigel of Elmhurst College in Illinois used the Spatial Reasoning Test to do this. The subjects had to look at two E letters, one of which rotated at an angle with respect to the other. And the larger the angle, the more difficult it was to determine if the letters were the same or different. The milliseconds spent by the subject comparing letters were the measure that determined the subject's level of spatial thinking. To Saigel's surprise, those subjects who listened to Mozart before the test were much more accurate in identifying letters.
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.
The genius of Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 in the Austrian city of Salzburg. Musical genius Mozart appeared already in early childhood He wrote his first symphony when he was not yet 10 years old, and his first successful opera at 12 years old. Per 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 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, - said Goethe to 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" ...
This theory received such a strong public response that Mozart's CDs, with appropriate parental recommendations, hit the very top of bestseller lists, and the governor of the US state of Georgia presented a Mozart CD to every new mother in his state.
True, the excitement subsided somewhat after some skeptics tried to check the "Mozart effect" and did not get the predicted result. As for children, John Brewer, an authoritative expert on the study of the brain and cognition, shows in his book that “the myth of first three years “life has no foundation and the human brain continues to change and learn throughout life.
Nevertheless, an intriguing hypothesis about the influence of music on brain activity not only keeps walking, but in last years even received a whole series of new solid evidence, both subjective and objective.
What is true, what is just a lie, and what is statistics?
For the first time this idea came across more than ten years ago by the neuroscientist Gordon Shaw of the University of California (USA) and his graduate student Lang during the first attempts to simulate the work of the brain on a computer.
It is known that different groups of nerve cells in the brain perform different kinds of mental operations. Shaw and Leng created in a computer a model of a certain group of "cells" (in fact, electronic blocks) and checked what would happen if the ways of connecting these "cells" with each other were changed.
They found that each wiring diagram, that is, each successive "network" formed by the same cells, generates output signals of a different shape and rhythm. One day it occurred to them to convert these outputs into audio signals. To their great surprise, it turned out that all these signals had a certain musical character, that is, they resembled some kind of music, and moreover, with each change in the ways of connecting cells into a network, the nature of this "music" changed: sometimes it resembled meditative melodies like "New Age", sometimes - oriental motives, and even classical music.
But if the performance of mental operations in the brain has a "musical" character, thought Gordon Shaw, then could it be that music, in turn, is capable of influencing mental activity, exciting certain neural networks?
Since these networks are formed in childhood, Shaw decided to use the works of Mozart, who, as you know, began to compose music at the age of four years... If anything can affect the innate neural structure, the scientist reasoned, then it should be Mozart's children's music.
Gordon Shaw and fellow psychologist Francis Rauscher decided to experiment with a standard IQ test to see if Mozart's music could stimulate the ability to mentally manipulate geometric shapes.
The ability to imagine different stereoscopic objects when changing their position in space (for example, turning around its axis) is necessary in a number of exact sciences, for example, in mathematics.
At the end of the test, the students were divided into three groups. The students of the first group sat in complete silence for 10 minutes, the second group all this time listened to a recorded story or repeating primitive music; students of the third group listened piano sonata Mozart.
After that, all participants in the experiment repeated the test. And here are the results. While the first group improved their results by 14 and the second by 11 percent, the Mozart group correctly predicted 62 percent more shapes than in the first test.
Another Gordon Shaw collaborator, Julienne Johnson of the Brain Aging Institute at the University of California, performed the same paper folding and carving test among Alzheimer patients who often had impaired spatial awareness.
In a preliminary experiment, one of the patients, after receiving a ten-minute “dose” of Mozart, improved his results by three to four correct answers (out of eight possible). The silence or popular music of the thirties did not have such an effect.
However, Shaw and Rauscher's experiment drew criticism from other researchers. Kenneth Steele, a psychologist at North Carolina State University (USA), reported that he repeated this test among 125 people, but found no signs of the influence of Mozart's music on the subjects.
Another psychologist, Christopher Chabris of Harvard, studied a group of 714 participants. According to him, the analysis of the test results also did not reveal any benefit from listening to music. Chabris suggested that the real reason for the better performance of the task in the Shaw-Rauscher experiment was the excitement caused by the pleasure of Mozart's music, and not the changes it produced in the neural networks. When the mood is elevated, people work better - everyone knows that.
On the other hand, some skeptics, after closer acquaintance with the issue, changed their attitude towards the Mozart effect. So Louise Hetland of Harvard teacher training college processed the entire amount received on this moment test results, which included 1014 people in total.
The results she obtained were, of course, more reliable. She found that Mozart's listeners overtook other groups in performing the assigned task more often than this could be explained by sheer chance. Moreover, the effect she discovered was significantly weaker than that of Shaw and Rauscher. But even this small effect, according to Hetland, makes a significant impression.
To test her assumptions, Rauscher staged a special experiment on rats, which obviously do not have an emotional reaction to music. A group of 30 rats was placed in a room where Mozart's sonata in C major sounded for more than two months for 12 hours in a row.
It turned out that after that, the rats ran the maze an average of 27 percent faster and with 37 percent fewer errors than the other 80 rats that developed in the midst of random noise or silence. According to Rauscher, this experiment confirms the neurological, not the emotional, nature of the Mozart effect.
True, Kenneth Steele (who, by the way, is a specialist in animal education) was not convinced by these data. Rats should respond to rat squeaks, not to human music, he thinks.
From the point of view of modern evolutionary or psychological theory, there is no reason why rat brains should react to Mozart in the same way as human ones.
Rauscher agrees that perhaps the music could simply provide the experimental rats with a more stimulating environment. Now she started new series experiments in which he is going to compare rats put on a rigid Mozart "diet" with their counterparts in other cells, also receiving stimulation, but in the form social contacts and rat toys, not music.
There was further evidence of the effects of Mozart's music on the brain. A neurologist at the University of Illinois Medical Center (USA) John Hughes conducted an experiment on 36 severe epileptic patients who suffered from almost constant seizures.
In the process of observing the patients, the scientist turned on the music of Mozart and compared the brain encephalogram before and during the exposure to music. In 29 patients from this group, the waves of brain activity arising during an attack became weaker and less frequent soon after the music was turned on.
"Skeptics can criticize research done with IQ tests," says Hughes, "but here the results are objective, they are recorded on paper: you can count the number and amplitude of electrical waves that excite the brain, and observe their decrease while listening to Mozart."
It is interesting to note that when, instead of Mozart, the same patients listened to the music of some other composers, the popular rhythms of the thirties or complete silence, they did not show any improvement.
And this leads to an intriguing question: why exactly Mozart? Why not Salieri, and also not Bach, Chopin or many others? As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, Gordon Shaw was the first to turn to the music of this composer because Mozart began to compose his music in early childhood, and therefore, in its rhythmic properties, it could be closer to the processes that occur when neural networks arise in childhood. to the brain. But haven't scientists found other, more objective explanations for this strange phenomenon? It turns out that there are such explanations.
The same Gordon Shaw and his colleague from the Los Angeles branch of the University of California, neuroscientist Mark Bodner used a brain scan using magnetic resonance (MRI) to get a picture of the activity of those parts of the patient's brain that respond to listening to music by Mozart, Beethoven ("Elise") and pop music of the thirties. As expected, all types of music activated the part of the cerebral cortex (the center of hearing) that perceives the vibrations in the air caused by sound waves and sometimes stimulated parts of the brain associated with emotions.
But only Mozart's music activated all parts of the cerebral cortex, including those involved in motor coordination, vision and higher processes of consciousness and can play a role in spatial thinking.
What is the reason for this difference? Some light on this problem can be shed by the research of the already mentioned neurologist John Hughes in collaboration with musicologists. Scientists have analyzed hundreds of pieces of music by Mozart, Chopin and 55 other composers.
They presented the results in the form of a table, which indicated how often the sound volume waves rise and fall, lasting 10 seconds or more. Analysis showed that more primitive pop music is at the very bottom of this scale, while Mozart is two to three times higher.
According to Hughes' prediction, the strongest reaction in the brain should be caused by sequences of waves repeating every 20-30 seconds. This prediction is based on the fact that many functions of the central nervous system also have a cycle of 30 seconds (such is, for example, the frequency of waves of activity of neural networks).
It turned out that of all analyzed types of music, it is in Mozart's peaks that loudness with a frequency closest to 30 seconds is repeated more often than in all the others. Maybe the effect that occurs can be compared to resonance? In the next phase of his work, Dr. Hughes is going to test whether the pieces of music chosen according to this prediction actually have the strongest effect on the brain.
But let us return to those experiments that demonstrate the above described positive effect of Mozart's music on healthy and sick people. All the improvements found in this case were of a short-term nature. On the other hand, all of these experiments involved adults with mature brains.
On this basis, some researchers have suggested that, perhaps, in children, with their neural networks that are just forming, listening to Mozart can cause not only short-term, but also long-term, sustainable improvement in mental activity. This opinion is shared, in particular, by the psychologist Francis Rauscher.
Indeed, Rauscher seemed to have discovered such an influence during her five-year observation of children. Children who received music lessons for two years improved their spatial thinking abilities, and this effect did not disappear over time.
Rauscher suggested that music may have a structural effect on the formation of neural circuits in children's brains. From which it followed that musical influence in childhood can give a person intellectual advantages in an adult state.
The study of the Mozart effect on children and other experiments on the effect on the development of the child's brain gave impetus to the widespread in American society of the ideas of the so-called child determinism - the theory according to which the first three years of life are decisive for the mental formation of a child. Parents were taught to take care of the formation of neural networks in the child's brain already in the very early age.
This new campaign was launched by Rob Reiner in a book called I Am Your Child. The first years of life remain forever, he told his readers. And this is because it is in the first years of life that the child's brain forms trillions of synapses (connections that connect brain nerve cells).
Consequently, stimulating conditions for development in early childhood, before the final formation of brain structures, is critical for the formation of synapses and thereby for the formation of mental, musical and artistic abilities.
Kindergarten is too late. In other words, according to this idea, our fate does not depend on genes or even on memories. happy childhood, and from those first three years of life, when, presumably, neural networks are formed in the brain. Any lullaby, gurgle, or clapper will trigger flashes along neural pathways, forming a base for what might later become a talent for the arts or a love of football.
Not surprisingly, after receiving this information, millions of parents panicked. Just think, if you miss the critical intelligence-stimulating infancy, your child may never make it to Harvard! And you will be to blame for this!
John Brewer, President of the McDonnell Foundation in San Luis ( American state Missouri). This foundation funds research in the fields of neuroscience and cognition.
Brewer's detailed and consistent analysis of aspects of children's brain development that have already been and have not yet been studied by researchers, while highlighting the links between research, political considerations and social policy.
First of all, he warns against the unwanted consequences of the unnecessary noise that surrounds research on the "Mozart Effect", and in general against exaggeration, inevitably accompanied by a distortion of what neuroscientists today know about brain development.
The hype surrounding the "first three years" forces parents and educators to pay disproportionately to great attention those "right" conditions that stimulate the development of the child until three years of age, which supposedly will ensure his further intellectual development.
Brewer argues that "children's determinism" is based on an unreasonably extended interpretation of the results of certain brain studies, on a grossly overestimated assessment of their significance not only on the part of scientists, but especially on the part of enthusiasts child education and their supporters.
One of the main rationales for "childhood determinism" is research showing that the majority of neural connections, or synapses, are formed in the brain of a child before the age of three.
Indeed, an infant is born with a relatively small amount synapses, their number increases sharply until about three years of age, then decreases and by four to five years it stabilizes, no longer changing throughout a person's life. This picture is not controversial. But the “mythmakers” insist that stimulating the formation of synapses, and only during their growth, lays the foundation for intellectual abilities for life.
This interpretation, says Brewer, is highly questionable. First, there is no evidence that the presence of more synapse improves learning ability.
What's more, the increased number of synapses can lead to learning disabilities. This phenomenon was discovered in the study of a certain syndrome caused by a hereditarily transmitted defect of the X chromosome, which is accompanied by mental disability and an increased number of synapses in the brain.
In addition to this, it is well known that adolescence - the age when the number of synapses is already constant - is the most important period for learning and the formation of character and behavior. Supporters of the “three-year myth” also refer to the fact that laboratory rats growing up in a favorable environment have a larger cerebral cortex area than those who developed in poor conditions.
The researchers also found that in these rats, each neuron has 25 percent more synaptic connections. These data are not in doubt, but a slightly deeper analysis shows that significant changes in rat brains occur mainly in the visual zone, which is not directly related to learning. Thus, the conclusions about the clear relationship between synapses and abilities are, at the very least, oversimplified.
This statement finds its justification in the recent remarkable discoveries of neuroscientists, who experimentally discovered that, contrary to previous ideas about the final formation of the brain in childhood, the brain develops throughout life, constantly forming new nerve cells.
This plasticity of the brain enables us to learn at any age. This does not mean, of course, that severe long-term deprivation at an early age will not have a negative impact on intelligence. But long-term observations have shown that over time, even such an unfavorable beginning can be largely compensated for.
In the question of child education a special place is occupied by the study of languages. Most people can learn and improve languages at any age. But childhood is considered critical for mastering a second language without an accent.
New research shows that the age at which a person learned a language determines which region of the brain it will be "stored" in. For the first time, researchers came across this idea when working with patients with partial brain paralysis.
A typical case was that of a patient in a Northern Italian hospital. Patient E. all her 68 years of life spoke her native North Italian Veronese dialect, which was very different from standard Italian - her second language, which she studied at school, but almost never used. As a result of the stroke, the patient lost her speech and did not speak a word for two weeks.
Then the gift of speech returned to her. There seemed to be a complete recovery. But the relatives who came to visit her were amazed that she answered them in her second, half-forgotten, standard italian... In her native Veronese dialect, which she spoke every day all her life, she could not utter a single phrase, although she understood those who spoke to her. It was as if after the disease “erased” the part of the brain where the native, Veronese dialect was “written down”, some other part entered the work, bringing back into memory a long-forgotten second language.
This and similar cases gave scientists reason to assume that the native and learned languages are stored in different parts of the brain. At the same time, for truly bilingual people who in childhood began to speak two languages at the same time, the scheme of their storage in memory is different from the storage of languages in those people who began to learn a language after the age of ten.
The researchers suggest that the foundations for organizing these patterns are laid very early in children, even before they begin to speak. By studying what happens in the brain, scientists hope to explain why children learn language so much better than adults. And maybe find a way to overcome this limitation.
Children can perceive any language because they distinguish any sound. A newborn child has unlimited potential for language comprehension. Children can learn any language they are spoken to and, unlike adults, can distinguish any sounds. So, six month japanese child clearly hears the difference between the sounds "r" and "l", while adult Japanese do not distinguish between these sounds. And those sounds that the child hears regularly are somehow fixed in the memory, and the rest are erased.
Maria Cheor from Research Department cognitive abilities brain at the University of Helsinki received the first neurophysiological evidence that neural pathways for the perception of sounds specific to each language are laid down before the age of one year.
She measured the activity of the auditory cortex using electrodes attached to the skull. In a six-month-old child, all sounds were clearly distinguished on the phonogram, while in a one-year-old, some differences were erased and only sounds characteristic of the language that he heard around him, that is, his native language, were perceived.
This observation shows that early period(and even, as we can see, not up to three years, but up to one year), indeed, is critical for the perception of the language, especially its phonetic structures, which constitute the main stage in the study of the language.
In short, after you turn ten, you will never speak a new language the same way you speak your native language. This rule, however, is not absolute. After all, we know adults who have perfectly mastered foreign languages and even speak without an accent.
For now, it is enough for us to conclude that, as the latest experiments show, linguistic - as well as some visual - human abilities do develop during some “critical” period of early childhood.
But from this to the “myth of the first three years,” as John Brewer rightly states, the distance is enormous.
Al. Buchbinder
How are myths created? Can a myth be monetized? Debriefing on the example of the "Mozart Effect" myth.
The origin of the myth:
In the 50s of the last century, the French doctor 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" (loud) to "piano" (quiet), which Mozart used in his works, coincide with the biorhythms in the cerebral hemispheres. In 1991, his book "Why Mozart?" In it, he made the assumption that music can develop and heal the brain. It was in this book that he introduced the concept of the "Mozart Effect".
Recognition of the myth as a 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 of Mozart's sonatas to a group of subjects and then asked them to take a standardized spatial reasoning test. The test results showed an improvement in spatial thinking, i.e. increasing concentration of attention and speed of solving the proposed tasks. But this effect lasted only 15 minutes. The results of this study were published in the journal Nature. However, the researchers did not make any claims about the improvement in IQ in general.
Popularization of the myth
Although Rauscher and Shaw's study showed only short-term improvements in spatial thinking, the results were interpreted by the public and the media as "improved overall brain function." In 1994, music columnist Alex Ross wrote an article in the New York Times titled, "Researchers Find That Listening to Mozart Does Actually Make You Smarter." And in 1997 about the results of the study
Rauscher and Shaw were mentioned by the Boston Globe.
Monetizing the myth:
In 1997, Don Campbell's book "The Mozart Effect: The Power of Music - Heals the Body, Strengthens the Mind and Unleashes the Creative Spirit" was published. In his book, he argued that listening to Mozart's music (especially piano concerts) not only improves brain function and makes a person smarter, but also has a beneficial effect on overall mental condition... Following the first book, he immediately wrote the second - "The Mozart Effect for Children." In this book, he recommended playing classical music to infants to improve their mental development. Campbell presented his statements, referring to the research of Rauscher and Shaw, as already proven scientific facts.
In fact, he argued that Mozart's works are magic "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 relaxation and rejuvenation", "development of intelligence and learning", "development of creativity and imagination." Simultaneously with the release of the books, he released a collection of audio CDs with the "correct" selection of works by Mozart.
As a result, Campbell created a new market that exploited consumers' belief in the existence of a “one-stop-shop”. Books and collections of music, first published by Campbell and then by his followers, became commodities on the market.
Heavy artillery:
On January 13, 1998, Zel Miller, candidate for governor of Georgia (USA), in his speech to voters, announced that his draft state budget would include $ 105,000 per year to provide each child born in the state with a cassette or disc with recording of classical music.
Refutation of the myth:
In 1999, two groups of researchers raised the question: does the "Mozart Effect" really exist? In his article “Prelude or Requiem for 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 - the causative agents of pleasure and the "Mozart Effect" has nothing to do with it. "
The German government, in turn, also conducted a special study dedicated to 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, in fact, 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 research on the influence of the Mozart sonata K.448 on the space-time performance of the task, aroused not only great interest, but also several misconceptions ...".
The myth is dead, hello the myth.
Despite the fact that the existence of the "Mozart Effect" in the scientific community was disproved a long time ago, the market created by Campbell is not only still alive, but also developing successfully.
On request "The Mozart Effect" search engines give out many offers to buy books and CDs. On sites for expectant mothers you can not only buy a selection of CDs with the "Mozart Effect", but also sign up for a seminar on this topic. " Experienced psychologists", For a reasonable fee, offer their services for the selection of individual music programs to relax, improve memory and treat mental disorders.
http://professionali.ru/Blogs/Post/22869024/
"Music enhances concentration, enhances the ability to intuitive thinking."
Don Campbell
In the middle of the last century, the French scientist and otolaryngologist Alfred Tomatis proved that it has magical properties for a baby. It gives the child a sense of security and confidence, helps to grow and develop. But what if there are no parents nearby? Tomatis suggested the music of Amadeus Mozart as a substitute.
Photo © photo7ob.com
“This composer is a wonderful mother. In 50 years of practice, I went through a large number of composers. I still continue to experience new forms and types musical art such as choral singing, folk music, classic pieces. But the power of Mozart, especially his violin concertos, has the most healing effect on the human body. "
Alfred Tomatis
Later, the research of Tomatis was confirmed by American scientists. At the end of the last century, the scientist Don Campbell called such a healing effect of the classics the Mozart effect.
Why Mozart?
Scientists have come to the conclusion that the music of Mozart the best way suitable for kids, and they attribute this to the fact that the composer himself began writing music at the age of 4. In the music of Amadeus Mozart, there are smooth 20-30-second alternations of "loud-quiet", as well as many high-frequency sounds with a healing effect. They develop thinking and memory, train the microscopic muscles of the middle ear and normalize the functioning of the whole body.
Mozart's music can have a positive impact on any person. However, in the case of adults, the effect lasts only a few minutes. The psyche of children is much more receptive. Some scientists even talk about structural changes in the brain under the influence of the classics. So, American psychotherapists have been observing young children for 5 years. It turned out that children who attended music lessons for 2 years had improved intellectual abilities and spatial thinking.
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What are the healing properties of classical music?
3. Increases intelligence and improves memory.
The works of Mozart and other composers of the Baroque era increase concentration and academic performance. They activate both hemispheres of the brain, which contributes to the easy and quick assimilation of the material. During class, it is good to arrange 10-minute musical pauses to help the child relax. Psychotherapists also advise enrolling the child in music school- playing any instrument improves memory and develops intelligence.
4. Soothes, promotes falling asleep.
For most adults, prolonged listening to Bach's work acts as a sleeping pill. soothes nervous system, reduces pressure, normalizes work internal organs... As a sleeping pill, both classics and folklore are suitable for babies. Your child needs your voice: it calms, gives a sense of security. And in this case, it doesn't matter what you hum: folk song or works by Mozart.
Do you know that...
As a child, Gerard Depardieu suffered from severe stuttering. He was cured by Alfred Tomatis, who ordered the future actor to listen to Mozart 2 hours a day for several months in a row.