Research in Psychology Mozart Effect - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... The third group was the control group and was subjected to no music at all. The first group was tested for the alternative hypothesis and was reported to demonstrate a higher level of success result on the memory test scores whereas the members of the second group lagged behind in performing well on the memory test scores. However, in addition to this, the positive effect of rock music has been tracked and noticed which has then been incorporated and discussed in the study.
The Mozart's effect was first coined by Alfred Tomatis who observed that Mozart's music created the greatest healing effect on human body. His proposition was that listening to the composition of Mozart can enhance the general intellect level in human beings along with sharpening of the spatial understanding skills and capabilities.
For quite some time, the discipline of mind that is psychology has developed independently by divorcing itself from the science of the brain networking and its functioning, that is neuroscience. Psychologists have always been interested in our mental functioning and their capacities with special interest and focus on how we learn, remember, and imagine. The interest of neuroscientists in the development and functioning of brain has led to the furthering of studies which now encompass our mental software from the brain along with the working and performance of our neural hardware.
Don Campbell in his book The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power o...
Don Campbell in his book The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind and Unlock the Creative Spirit has stressed on the positive effects on the vocal, emotional and general skills related to spatial intelligence in direct correlation with Mozart's effect. In addition, he has talked about the outcomes on improved concentration and memory, enhanced creative progression of the right-brain and strengthening in common intuitive thinking skills.

Background Information on the Topic
It is believed that Mozart's music serves as a carrier, in that we use its beat or melody to help encode the content for relaxation and elation. Later on Rauscher, K.Y. and Shaw (1993) carried out an experiment on the basis of 'Mozart's effect', called the Music and Spatial Task Performance. It was found that the participants who had listened to Mozart's music scored 8-9 point higher as compared to those who either listened to another piece of music or listened to nothing at all. The piece of music used for this study was Mozart's 'Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K448'.Campbell (1997) further supported the study. However, this study was criticized by Steele (1999) who had tried to replicate the original study but failed to find any improvements

Creation of Essential Question
The essential question would be, that is there any presence of a positive cause and effect relationship on the memory status of the students who listen to Mozart's music, as it is propagated in the theory of Mozart's effect.

Hypothesis
The hypothesis that is to be tested for this study is, "Listening to Mozart's music has no effect on human memory"

Review of Literature
William Forde Thompson, E. Glenn Schellenberg, Gabriela Husain (2001) have ...Download file to see next pagesRead More