Editing Mozart effect (section)

{{Short description|Psychological effects of listening to Mozart's music}}
[[File:Wolfgang-amadeus-mozart_1.jpg|thumb|Krafft's posthumous 1819 Mozart portrait]]
The '''Mozart effect''' is the theory that listening to the music of [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]] may temporarily boost scores on one portion of an [[IQ test]]. [[Popular science]] versions of the theory make the claim that "listening to Mozart makes you smarter" or that early childhood exposure to classical music has a beneficial effect on [[Development of the nervous system in humans|mental development]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|title='Mozart Effect' Was Just What We Wanted To Hear|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128104580|access-date=2020-11-29|website=NPR.org|language=en}}</ref>

The original study from 1993 reported a short-term (lasting about 15 minutes) improvement on the performance of certain kinds of mental tasks known as [[spatial reasoning]],<ref name="Rauscher-Shaw-Ky-1993">{{Cite journal|last1=Rauscher|first1=Frances H.|last2=Shaw|first2=Gordon L.|last3=Ky|first3=Catherine N.|year=1993|title=Music and spatial task performance|url=http://www.uwosh.edu/psychology/faculty-and-staff/frances-rauscher-ph.d/Rauscher_ShawKy_1993.pdf/view|journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]|volume=365|issue=6447|pages=611|doi=10.1038/365611a0|pmid=8413624|bibcode=1993Natur.365..611R|s2cid=1385692|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name="pryse-phillips">{{cite book |title=Companion to Clinical Neurology |author=William Pryse-Phillips |year=2003 |isbn=0-19-515938-1 |publisher=Oxford University Press}}, p. 611 defines the term as "Slight and transient improvement in spational[sic] reasoning skills detected in normal subjects as a result of exposure to the music of Mozart, specifically his sonata for two pianos (K448)."</ref> such as [[Paper folding|folding paper]] and solving [[mazes]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Jenkins|first=J S|date=April 2001|title=The Mozart Effect|url= |journal=Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine|language=en|volume=94|issue=4|pages=170–172|doi=10.1177/014107680109400404|issn=0141-0768|pmc=1281386|pmid=11317617}}</ref> 
The results were highly exaggerated by the popular press and became "Mozart makes you smart",<ref name=":0" /> which was said to apply to children in particular (the original study included 36 college students).<ref name=":0" /> 
These claims led to a commercial [[fad]] with Mozart CDs being sold to parents.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last1=Pietschnig|first1=Jakob|last2=Voracek|first2=Martin|last3=Formann|first3=Anton K.|date=2010-05-01|title=Mozart effect–Shmozart effect: A meta-analysis|url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289610000267|journal=Intelligence|language=en|volume=38|issue=3|pages=314–323|doi=10.1016/j.intell.2010.03.001|issn=0160-2896|url-access=subscription}}</ref> 
The U.S. state of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] even proposed a budget to provide every child with a CD of [[classical music]].<ref name=":0" /> Around this time, the [[Baby Einstein]] franchise was being started and the second video in the series, ''Baby Mozart'', was made with the Mozart Effect in mind.

A [[meta-analysis]] of studies that have [[Reproducibility|replicated]] the original study shows that there is little evidence that listening to Mozart has any particular effect on spatial reasoning.<ref name=":2" />
The author of the original study has stressed that listening to Mozart has no effect on [[general intelligence]].<ref name=":1" />