Prior to starting the IQ Brain Clock blog, over at the mother blog (IQ's Corner), I made a number of posts re: the relations between musical abilities/training and various cognitive abilities (click here, here, here, and here). As my reading has expanded and evolved, I'm now beginning to see a closer link between these findings and the mental or interval time-keeping research. Thus, I now make this post at the IQ Brain Clock blog.
As noted by Dr. Lewis (2005), the brain's processing of time most likely contributes to our ability to "decode temporally complex auditory signals in the form of speech or music" (italics added by blogmaster). In addition, Dr. Lewis's research has led her to conclude that "Time measurement is fundamental to almost everything we do: music and speech, for instance, are just time-coded variations in sound...."(italics added by blogmaster). My prior post re: the 1997 Annual Review of Psychology is particularly relevant here as that literature review described a number of different theoretical conceptions of mental time-keeping that may underlie musical performance, conceptions that are very similar to the cognitive/neuroscience-based models that have been hypothesized to explain the positive treatment effect of synchronized metronome tapping (in a variety of domains).
It is within this context that I was excited to read the following article which reinforces the potential importance of music instruction on cognitive abilities and, more importantly, IMHO sets the record straight on the infamous and popular "Mozart effect."
As noted in the Rauscher review. "Schellenberg (2003) suggests that “positive transfer effects to nonmusical domains, such as language, mathematics, or spatial reasoning could be similarly unique for individuals who take music lessons” (p. 444) and further states that:
Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, music, musical abilities, intelligence, cognition, IQ, IQ scores, Mozart effect, mental time keeping, interval time keeping, metronome, interactive metronome, music instruction, IQ enhancement
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As noted by Dr. Lewis (2005), the brain's processing of time most likely contributes to our ability to "decode temporally complex auditory signals in the form of speech or music" (italics added by blogmaster). In addition, Dr. Lewis's research has led her to conclude that "Time measurement is fundamental to almost everything we do: music and speech, for instance, are just time-coded variations in sound...."(italics added by blogmaster). My prior post re: the 1997 Annual Review of Psychology is particularly relevant here as that literature review described a number of different theoretical conceptions of mental time-keeping that may underlie musical performance, conceptions that are very similar to the cognitive/neuroscience-based models that have been hypothesized to explain the positive treatment effect of synchronized metronome tapping (in a variety of domains).
It is within this context that I was excited to read the following article which reinforces the potential importance of music instruction on cognitive abilities and, more importantly, IMHO sets the record straight on the infamous and popular "Mozart effect."
- Rauscher, F. Hinton, S. (2006). The Mozart Effect: Music Listening is Not Music Instruction. Educational Psychologist, 41 (4), 233-238. (click here to view)
- “The Mozart effect” originally referred to the phenomenon of a brief enhancement of spatial- temporal abilities in college students after listening to a Mozart piano sonata (K. 448).Over time, this term was conflated with an independent series of studies on the effects of music instruction. This occurrence has caused confusion that has been perpetuated in scholarly articles, such as the one by Waterhouse (2006) and that persists in the minds of the general public. Here this article emphasizes the distinction that must be made between research on music listening and research on the more cognitively complex and educationally significant phenomena of music instruction. This article stresses that improvements in spatial-temporal skills associated with music instruction are not “free.” This article also discusses theories of transfer and mechanisms of learning as they relate to this topic.
As noted in the Rauscher review. "Schellenberg (2003) suggests that “positive transfer effects to nonmusical domains, such as language, mathematics, or spatial reasoning could be similarly unique for individuals who take music lessons” (p. 444) and further states that:
- …the ability to attend to rapidly changing temporal information, skills relevant to auditory stream segregation, the ability to detect temporal groups, sensitivity to signals of closure and other gestalt cues of form, emotional sensitivity and fine motor skills … should be particularly likely to transfer to a variety of nonmusical domains. (p. 444)"
Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, music, musical abilities, intelligence, cognition, IQ, IQ scores, Mozart effect, mental time keeping, interval time keeping, metronome, interactive metronome, music instruction, IQ enhancement
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