The effect of music
listening on spatial skills:
The role of processing time
Doris Grillitsch, Department of Psychology
Richard Parncutt, Department of Musicology
University of Graz, Austria
International Conference of Music Perception and Cognition
Sapporo, Japan, August 2008
“Mozart effect”
Rauscher, Shaw & Ky (1993)
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
listening to music can improve spatial ability
small effect, short period
3 conditions:
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Mozart Sonata in D major for 2 pianos
relaxation CD (voice only)
no music (sit in silence)
Humans versus rats
Rauscher, Robinson & Jens (1998)

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repeated pre- and postnatal music exposure can
improve rats’ ability to negotiate a maze
depends on kind of music
But:
 Can rats hear anything before birth?
 Any pre- and postnatal sensory exposure can affect
brain development
 What aspect of “musical” structure did it?
Die Musik an sich?
Thompson, Schellenberg & Husain (2001)
“Mozart effect” is an artifact of
 arousal
 mood
It’s not about Mozart - not even about music!
The role of preference
Hypothesis:

listener must like sound stimulus or identify with it
Nantais & Schellenberg (1999, Expt 2)

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better spatial skills after hearing preferred stimulus
choice between Mozart Sonata and short story
Time on spatial task
Time not reported:

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Rauscher et al. (1993)
Schellenberg & Hallam (2005)
Ivanov & Geake (2003)
– spatial skills are better evaluated without time limit
(Silverman, 1999)
Time limit (1 minute per task):


Thompson et al (2001)
Nantais & Schellenberg (1999)
What about motivation?
Definition
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tendency to engage with spatial task
Measure
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time spent on task
Relevance

expertise approach to musical ability
Question
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Does flow matter? Adjust difficulty to ability?
Playfulness
Schellenberg, Nakata, Hunter & Tamoto (2007):
Children heard familiar songs or unfamiliar music

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Familiar group spent more time drawing pictures
Their pictures were rated more creative
Did familiar songs make the children more
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playful?
persistent?
Does time spent have more important implications for
musical development than the “Mozart effect”?
Our experiment
Music conditions

fast happy music
start of Mozart Sonata in D for 2 pianos, KV 448

personal favorite music
mostly pop
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slow sad music
start of Mozart Fantasy in D minor (KV 397)
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silence (control)
Measures
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enjoyment of music
spatial skill measure
mood
time spent on spatial tasks
Participants
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4 groups @ 10, random assignment
undergraduate students in various
disciplines (mainly psychology)
average age: 24 years
Procedure
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Instructions for spatial skills task*
Music (or silence) for 3 minutes
Mood questionnaire
Spatial skills tasks
Mood questionnaire
How much did you enjoy the music?
* Due to short duration of “Mozart effect”
Mental rotation task
A3DW (Gittler, 1999), standard version S2
test cube
none of them
don`t know
Mental rotation task
Adaptive procedure (A3DW)
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The difficulty of each task is matched to the
estimated spatial skill of the participant.
The skill measure (“parameter”) is updated
after each task.
The system stops after 10 items if the
measure is stable.
maximum 17 items
Results
spatial
skill
“parameter” = final estimate of spatial ability
 no significant difference among the groups
 no direct effect of music on spatial skills
 no „Mozart effect“
Results
working
time per
task


large & highly significant effect of music on time spent
per rotation task (F3, 32 = 6.123; p = 0.002)
significant difference (Tukey) between
– favourite music
– Mozart Sonata and control
A second analysis
Rauscher et al. (1993): spatial skills effect
limited to 10-15 minutes

We repeated our analysis for data obtained in first 15
minutes after music stopped
23 of our 40 participants spent less than
15 minutes on mental rotation tasks

repeat analysis was different for only 17 participants
For these we now considered:
(i)
(ii)
average time spent on each task before 15 minutes
spatial skills measure at 15 minutes
Results
spatial
skill
at 15 min

again: no significant effect of music on
task performance
Results
working
time
per task
first 15 min


again: large & highly sig. effect of music on time spent
per rotation task (F3, 32 = 6.350; p = 0.002)
again: significant difference (Tukey) between
– favourite music
– Mozart Sonata and control
Mood
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monitored before and after rotation tasks
standardised test: EWL 60 S (Janke & Debus, 1978)
rate own mood from a list of adjectives
Only one sig. effect of music on mood:

deterioration for favourite music group
(z = -2.555; p = 0.011)
Possible explanations:

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Improved mood after preferred music
Longer time spent on rotation tasks
Enjoyment of music
Just checking: We asked the three experimental (music)
groups how much they had enjoyed the music.

significant effect of group
(F2, 24 = 3.714; p = 0.039)

favourite music group enjoyed music more than
Mozart Sonata group (Tukey)
Favorite music  more time
on subsequent task. Why?
1. Favourite music improves mood
• more relaxed, less afraid of mistakes
• less afraid of seeming unintelligent
• holiday behavior: avoid stress, take your time
2. Positive emotion of the music is incompatible
with subsequent task
• motivation falls, speed of working falls
3. Favourite music induces playfulness
• try out many different task solutions
• more persistent, give up less easily
Play and skill acquisition

Skills are often developed in a playful manner
e.g. language, creativity, use of tools and symbols,
problem solving, anxiety management, conflict
resolution (Bruner, Jolly, & Sylva, 1976)

Specific skill levels depend primarily on total
amount practice time (Ericsson et al., 1993)
playfulness  repetitions  skill?
Is music a virtual person?
Music (and especially preferred music)
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expresses personal states such as anger
expresses personal attributes such as femininity
linked to spirituality
alleviates pain and loneliness
Children play with more engagement and for longer
periods when their mother is available but passive
(Slade, 1987).

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Do children play independently for longer when familiar music is
playing in the background?
In this study: Did familiar music make participants feel more
emotionally secure and able to focus attention on the task?
Caveats

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Our spatial skills test was too complex
Results may depend on age
– as does “open-earedness”
Future work

simpler spatial skill task

additional measures
– behavioral and physiological measures of arousal
– behavioral measure of mood
Summary
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Listening to favorite music increases
time spent on subsequent spatial task
Music may promote learning by
promoting playfulness
literature
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Bruner, J. S., Jolly, A., & Sylva K. (Eds., 1976). Play—Its role in
development and evolution. New York: Basic.
Ericsson, K. A. Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Romer, C. (1993). The role of
deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological
Review, 100. 363-406.
Gittler, G. (1999). Adaptiver 3-dimensionaler Würfeltest A3DW (Version
23.00) [Computer Software]. Mödling, Austria: Schuhfried.
Gittler, G. (1990). Dreidimensionaler Würfeltest (3DW). Ein Rasch-
skalierter Test zur Messung des räumlichen Vorstellungsvermögens
(Theoretische Grundlagen und Manual). Weinheim: Beltz Test GmbH.
Ivanov, V. K. & Geake, J. G. (2003). The Mozart Effect and primary
school children. Psychology of Music, 31(4), 405-413.
Janke, W. & Debus, G. (1978). Die Eigenschaftswörterliste
Selbstbeurteilungs-Skala (S) (EWL 60 S). Göttingen: Hogrefe.
Nantais, K. M., & Schellenberg, E. G. (1999). The Mozart effect: An
artifact of preference. Psychological Science, 10 (4), 370-373.
Parncutt, R., & Kessler, A. (2006). Musik als virtuelle Person. In R.
Flotzinger (Ed.), Musik als... Ausgewählte Betrachtungsweisen (pp. 9-52).
Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
literature
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Rauscher, F. H., Robinson, K. D., & Jens, J. J. (1998). Improved maze
learning through early music exposure in rats. Neurological Research, 20,
427-432.
Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G. L., & Ky, K. N. (1993). Music and spatial task
performance. Nature, 365, 611.
Schellenberg, E. G. (2005). Music and cognitive abilities. Current
Directions in Psychological Science, 14 (6), 317-320.
Schellenberg, E. G. & Hallam, S. (2005). Music listening and ccgnitive
abilities in 10- and 11-year-olds: The Blur effect. Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences, 1060.
Schellenberg, E. G., Nakata, T., Hunter, P. G., & Tamoto, S. (2007).
Exposure to music and cognitive performance: Tests of children and
adults. Psychology of Music, 35, 5-19.
Slade, A. (1987). A longitudinal study of maternal involvement and
symbolic play during the toddler period. Child Development, 58, 367-375.
Thompson, W. F.; Schellenberg, E. G., & Husain G. (2001). Arousal, mood
and the Mozart effect. Psychological Science, 12 (3), 248-251.
Many thanks for your
attention
Ideas from the discussion
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Which was more important for spatial skills, arousal
or liking?
Did the students like the Fantasie more than the
Sonata?
Did ability increase during the spatial skills task?
Is it possible to approach this kind of spatial task
playfully? Or Rauscher’s paper folding task?
What kind of music did the students in the favorite
music group bring? Arousal? Valence?
Do these results imply that the people in the
favorite music group were less good at the spatial
task? They took twice as long but were not better.