Listening to particular pieces of music can enhance learning and improve performance in exams. Called the "Mozart effect", the link between listening and spatial ability is controversial, but worth pursuing, writes Professor John Jenkins, in the April Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Research done in 1993 found pre-school children's spatial reasoning improved when they listened to Mozart's piano sonata K448. Since then, other researchers have shown that Bach and some contemporary music has the same effect. Particularly valuable is a piece by the Greco-American pianist/ composer Yanni, who writes instrumental "new age" music with similar structure to K448.
Further study has shown that children who spend six months being taught a keyboard instrument do better on simple spatial-temporal tests than children who work on computers. Brain scans have shown that the human brain uses a wide distribution of areas to listen to music. Rhythm and pitch tend to be processed in the left side, timbre and melody on the right. Those parts of the brain which we use for spatial/temporal tasks actually overlap with the music processing parts. Professor Jenkins suggests that "listening to music would prime the activation of those areas of the brain which are concerned with spatial reasoning".
But why Mozart and Yanni? Why not Eminem? Computer analysis of pieces by various composers has uncovered a common factor in the music of Mozart and Bach. In both, wave forms (called "long-term periodicity") repeat themselves regularly, although not very close together, throughout a composition. Music without such wave forms has no effect on spatial reasoning.
Professor Jenkins explains that "music with a high degree of long-term periodicity . . . would resonate within the brain to enhance spatial-temporal performance". Such music has also calmed and prevented epileptic seizures by soothing brain waves.
He concludes that any health benefits of listening to music are "not specific to Mozart's compositions", and calls for more research to be done on music other than K448, with longer listening periods.