KQED News Mind/Shift – Staff Writer
“A 1993 study of college students showed them performing better on spatial reasoning tests after listening to a Mozart sonata. That led to claims that listening to Mozart temporarily increases IQs — and to a raft of products purporting to provide all sorts of benefits to the brain. In 1998, Zell Miller, then the governor of Georgia, even proposed providing every newborn in his state with a CD of classical music. But subsequent research has cast doubt on the claims. Ani Patel, an associate professor of psychology at Tufts University and the author of “Music, Language, and the Brain,” says that while listening to music can be relaxing and contemplative, the idea that simply plugging in your iPod is going to make you more intelligent doesn’t quite hold up to scientific scrutiny.”(more)