The Effects of Different Types of Music on Cognitive Abilities

Abstract

A variety of research has been conducted on the effects of different types of music on cognitive abilities. Many of these studies are based upon the Mozart Effect, which claims that listening to classical music has an advantage over other types of music on learning. This study consists of two experiments which tested 54 college students ages 18-50. In Experiment 1, we hypothesized that participants exposed to Mozart would score significantly higher on a listening comprehension test than those exposed to rock music or silence. In Experiment 2, we hypothesized that listening to rock music would result in lower reading comprehension test scores than classical music or non-music groups. An ANOVA test indicated that the results for both experiments were non-significant.