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American Morning

House Call: Mozart Effect

Aired August 20, 2003 - 09:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Many people believe that exposing infants to classical music can raise a child's I.Q. It came to be called "the Mozart effect." But does it really make them smarter than children who tune music out? Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from CNN Center with details on a new study.
Really, Sanjay, that's picking up from the old study back in 1993.

And good morning to you, by the way.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Yes, when that study came out in '93, it was a pretty sensational thing. You know, people were looking for a long time to see what the effect of music is on someone's intelligence, and most people thought it was going to have no affect at all. This paper came out in '93 and really raised a lot of eyebrows.

I'll tell you specifically about the study. They actually looked at 36 college students, these were college students specifically, who listened either to 10 minutes of Mozart's "Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major" or listened to silence or listened to a relaxation tape. And what they found after that, and this is within 10 to 15 minutes after, there was a test performed, and they what found was there was actually a difference in the scores of the people who had the various music that they were listening to.

This is pretty -- if you can make out this bar graph here, but basically, what it shows about 119 I.Q. for the people listening to music versus about a 110 for people who listen to nothing at all, silence. So a 9 point difference overall, and that effect only lasted about 10 to 15 minutes.

As you can imagine, Soledad, there was a lot of skepticism, a lot of and people trying to duplicate these study findings. Most recently, there was a study out of the University of Toronto, again, looking at this effect. And specifically, let me tell you quickly what they found, same sort of study, again, exposing people to music, different types of music, either with a fast tempo and a different mode of music, either major, minor. What they found conclusively at the end was that the tempo of the music and if the mode the music was in major, versus minor, they got better test scores, that increased arousal, and they were in a better mood.

Bottom line, they concluded if you were in a better mood, if the music you were listening to was of increased tempo, you're more likely to do better on certain types of tests. Those tests were spatial reasoning tests more than anything else -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: So it's not the Mozart thing, it's the upbeat music things. And as long as it's upbeat and not downbeat, then you're going to do better ask.

GUPTA: That's the conclusion of this most recent study, yes exactly. So Mozart, nothing specific about that.

O'BRIEN: All right, Sanjay. Thanks very much. Now I'm going to ask myself what to do with all the thousands of baby Mozart tapes I bought for all my children.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired August 20, 2003 - 09:51   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Many people believe that exposing infants to classical music can raise a child's I.Q. It came to be called "the Mozart effect." But does it really make them smarter than children who tune music out? Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from CNN Center with details on a new study.
Really, Sanjay, that's picking up from the old study back in 1993.

And good morning to you, by the way.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Yes, when that study came out in '93, it was a pretty sensational thing. You know, people were looking for a long time to see what the effect of music is on someone's intelligence, and most people thought it was going to have no affect at all. This paper came out in '93 and really raised a lot of eyebrows.

I'll tell you specifically about the study. They actually looked at 36 college students, these were college students specifically, who listened either to 10 minutes of Mozart's "Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major" or listened to silence or listened to a relaxation tape. And what they found after that, and this is within 10 to 15 minutes after, there was a test performed, and they what found was there was actually a difference in the scores of the people who had the various music that they were listening to.

This is pretty -- if you can make out this bar graph here, but basically, what it shows about 119 I.Q. for the people listening to music versus about a 110 for people who listen to nothing at all, silence. So a 9 point difference overall, and that effect only lasted about 10 to 15 minutes.

As you can imagine, Soledad, there was a lot of skepticism, a lot of and people trying to duplicate these study findings. Most recently, there was a study out of the University of Toronto, again, looking at this effect. And specifically, let me tell you quickly what they found, same sort of study, again, exposing people to music, different types of music, either with a fast tempo and a different mode of music, either major, minor. What they found conclusively at the end was that the tempo of the music and if the mode the music was in major, versus minor, they got better test scores, that increased arousal, and they were in a better mood.

Bottom line, they concluded if you were in a better mood, if the music you were listening to was of increased tempo, you're more likely to do better on certain types of tests. Those tests were spatial reasoning tests more than anything else -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: So it's not the Mozart thing, it's the upbeat music things. And as long as it's upbeat and not downbeat, then you're going to do better ask.

GUPTA: That's the conclusion of this most recent study, yes exactly. So Mozart, nothing specific about that.

O'BRIEN: All right, Sanjay. Thanks very much. Now I'm going to ask myself what to do with all the thousands of baby Mozart tapes I bought for all my children.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com