Introduction

Educators and parents have often sought a solution to the baffling problem, of how to ensure the intellectual and developmental growth of our children. In a report published in 1993 entitled Music and spatial task performance in Nature, participants who listened to Mozart for 10 minutes, performed on a spatial intelligence test better than control groups who sat in silence or listened to relaxing instruction by 89 IQ points, or at least the college students tested (Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky, 1993). Raucher called this the Mozart effect a label quickly adopted, there were quickly replications of the study, and further research. However the meta-analysis 16 of these studies came to the conclusion that the effect size was often not significant (Chabris, 1999). Despite the theory suffering from rather shaky scientific support it has enjoyed an overwhelming popularity particularly in the US. Where a number of interest groups and media, where quick to seize it as a new method for enhancing general intelligence (Bruer, 1999). In order to understand the Mozart effect we must have at least a limited understanding of theories of intelligence. Intelligence is a general mental ability although there is much debate over what exactly that ability is. Concepts of intelligence vary from the ability for faster cognitions to the ability to more efficiently organize information (Galotti, 2008). A popular theory is that intelligence is a construct composed of a number of cognitive abilities, it is possible that the development of these cognitive abilities varies between individuals, giving rise to different cognitive abilities just as there are different physiques. Howard Gardner (1993) offered a theory that there were multiple intelligences, Gardener (1999) (as cited in Galotti, 2008) has proposed a total of 9 types of intelligence including spatial intelligence. One of the key areas of focus in regard to the Mozart effect is spatial intelligence. Spatial intelligence has an effect on the speed and accuracy of participants cognitions when they perform spatial tasks. Visual imagery contains spatial components in the way the objects are arranged in relation not only to each other and the observer but actual physical space (Galloti, 2008). Spatial cognitions allow us to use visual imagery to understand or change spatial relationships a good example is understanding a map. The Mozart effect is thought to improve spatial cognitions allowing faster and/or more accurate spatial intelligence.

Three main theories concerning the function of the Mozart effect have emerged. The first initially propose by Raucher, Shaw, & Ky (1993) is a neurological basis where listening to Mozart stimulates neurons in the same area of the cerebral cortex as are used in spatial tasks therefore priming the brain for neural activity. The second theory proposes listening to Mozart optimizes arousal (Estell, & Jones, 2007) so if arousal is too high it decreases and if it is too low it increases, leading to optimal performance. The third theory argues the significant factor is preference, so that when participants are exposed to a preferred stimulus spatial performance increases (Estell, & Jones, 2007).

Study 1
In this experiment Cohen, Della Paolera, Kasahara, Macedo Batista Fiorelli, Mandia, & Vincente de Almeida (2009) 60 3rd year medical students volunteered to take part, subjects were subjected to optic tests including visual acuity participants without excellent visual acuity (less than 20/20) where excluded from the experiment. The mean age of the experiment group was 22.6 and 22.9 for the controls (Cohen, et al., 2009), none of the participants had participated in automated perimetry before. Automated perimetry is a test that projects a white light onto a white concave background for 100-200m/s within the central visual field, participants are required to respond by pushing a button when they see a stimuli. Subjects were assigned to one of two groups so that both groups would be of similar composition in regards to sex and ethnicity. The study group immediately before undergoing automated perimetry was exposed to Mozarts Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (K.448) (Cohen et al., 2007. p543) the control group were left in silence in a room prior to testing for 10 minutes. After a brief explanation of how the testing would proceed subjects undertook testing on the right eye, the time lapse between the end of exposure to Mozarts Sonata and the end of testing could be no more than 10 minutes. A technician stayed with participants throughout the test but was forbidden to interrupt participants. A record was kept of each participants results. The results for the automated perimetry test were divided into three main categories; Fixation loss (FL), False positive errors (FP), and False negative errors (FN). The FL shows how consistently the participant stares at a fixation point in the centre of the dome, the FP how often the patient presses the response button when no stimulus is present and the FN measures how often the patient fails to press the response button when a stimulus is present. Results for the control group

where FL 19%, FP 2% and FN 2% results for the study group were as follows FL 1%, FP 0.6% and FN 0.2% although the control groups results are quite different particularly fixation loss the results are still within normal test results. The stronger results for the study group would indicate that they had some improvement in performance over the control group however this study does not imply causation as there are a number of variables which could account for these differences. Cohen,. et al. (2009) propose that since when people initially take the automated peremity tests results are initially depressed and further testing often leads to improved results the Mozart effect is acting as a primer giving improved results during initial testing.

Study 2
In a study of high school students Estell & Jones (2007) got 86 North American high school students, 48 of which were female and 38 male whose age ranged from 14 to 18 years. Students ethnicity was divided into 5 categories, White, African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American and Other. Students were approached a week prior to the study to solicit their participation, in a study measuring the relationship between music and spatial testing, guardians were sent permission forms for their wards participation. Students were randomly assigned to two groups, experimental and control with 42 in the experimental group and 44 in the control. The experimental group remained in the class and listened to the first 7 minutes and 28 seconds of Mozarts Two Pianos in D Major, K448 on a portable stereo. The control group was escorted from the classroom by the teacher and waited for 7 minutes and 30 seconds in a nearby hallway, once the time had elapsed the control group returned to the classroom. Once all participants had returned to the classroom and were seated, participants filled out a self report on arousal levels and a series of spatial problems, students were given 30 minutes to complete the test, those who finished the test early waited quietly. In this experiment there was no significant difference between males and females so results were collapsed. This experiment allows for two different hypothesis analyses first, that listening to Mozart increases intelligence in relation to spatial intelligence, the second that whether different states of arousal can optimize performance on spatial ability tests (Estell & Jones, 2007). Test scores for the control group had a mean of 8.39 while the study group scored a mean of 10.69 this would initially seem to indicate a significant effect however after the participants arousal levels are taken into account a different explanation of results emerges (Estell & Jones, 2007). Arousal information for the study was divided into three categories, Less awake, Neither, and More

awake. Several analyses suggest that not only did more participants in the control group have a lower level of arousal than would be expected. Those who reported the neither condition had a mean score of 11.92 significantly greater performance than those who reported either the More or Less awake conditions. When compared to the study group participants mean score of 10.40 for the neither condition (Estell & Jones, 2007). Giving the control group neither conditions a significantly higher score than the study group. This would indicate that the silence condition could also relate to arousal and spatial performance.

Study 3
In this study by Estell, West & Jones (2006) of the Mozart effect an emphasis was placed on investigating arousal and preference of music and silence. 41 college students volunteered to take part in the study, 20 males and 21 females, they ranged in age from 19 to 27 years and had a mean age of 20 years. The participants belonged to four ethnic groups 34 Caucasian, 3 AfricanAmerican, 2 Hispanic and 2 nonreporting. All participants were currently undertaking undergraduate educational psychology courses in the Midwest United States. The independent variables for the study were exposure to Mozart or silence, self-reported arousal, and self-reported preference for the music or silence stimulus. (Estell, Jones, & West, 2006, p27). The measurement of spatial ability in the form of a spatial intelligence section of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales as the dependant variable. Participants were informed they were participating in a study investigating the relationship between music and problem solving. After filling out a brief demographic survey participants were randomly split into control and experimental groups. The experimental group remained in the classroom and listened to Mozart through a portable stereo for 7.5 minutes. The control group left the classroom and sat in the nearby library for 7.5 minutes, the group was supervised by an experimenter to ensure there was no working or talking. After the time had elapsed the control group returned to the classroom and both groups filled out an arousal self-report before taking the spatial intelligence test, participants were given 30 minutes to complete the test but most finished within 15 and were permitted to leave. Results showed that that the experimental group scored significantly higher on the spatial intelligence test than the control group however after controls for arousal were implemented the results for the Mozart effect were no longer significant in affecting spatial performance. Further supporting this was a significant difference in arousal between the two groups inline with the differences seen in spatial performance. Preference was found to have no effect on arousal. This

would point towards arousal mediating the relationship between music and spatial performance (Estell, Jones & West, 2006).

Limitations
Although these studies all carry individual merit in that they each show a slightly different piece of the same puzzle, e.g. Cohen, et al (2009) show a possible and practical use for the Mozart effect through priming for automated perimetry testing. There are a number of limitations which must be taken into consideration. A recurrent theme through many studies is the use of easily accessible population groups, and two of these studies are no exception. The studies conducted by Cohen, et al (2009) and Estell, Jones, & West (2006) participants consists entirely of university students who have volunteered to participate. Cohen, et al (2009) have then gone even further by allocating participants to the control and experimental groups based on their ethnicity and sex. This method of convenience sampling makes it difficult to argue the studies participants and hence results are representative of the general population (Fraenkel, 2005 as cited in Krageloh, C. 2008). Another limitation with the studies presented is the small sample size the biggest sample was 86 high school students in Estell, & Jones (2007) study. When study size is small the margin of error for results is increased and although it is nigh on impossible for everyone to be a participant, it is desirable to obtain the largest possible sample with available time and money (Fraenkel, 2005 as cited in Krageloh, C. 2008).

Conclusions
The Mozart effect is one that has been popularized in the media and by a number of interest groups, despite the fact that the Mozart effect has never been proven to improve general intelligence, and even then the increases in spatial intelligence have predominantly been demonstrated in controlled test conditions. The reasons behind this are most probably many and varied from naivety of research to profit. But with the availability of products and media promoting the Mozart effect it has become a idea with great public awareness, in surveys we have conducted in California and Arizona (total N = 496), over 80% of respondents report some familiarity with the ME (Bangerter, 2004). With such a saturation of the public psyche continuing research into the Mozart effect must be doubly careful. In order to create a more generalisable hypothesis larger sections of the general population must be involved in studies. But

as knowledge of the effect spreads testing may be increasingly confounded by the Hawthorne effect as participants will already have preconceived ideals about their performance when in either the control (worse) or the experimental group (better) performance could be effected merely by being in a experiment (Taylor, 2000). Various ethnic groups also need more research as very little is known about the Mozart effect on non-western groups. Ironically some of these groups have much lower media saturation within their daily lives potentially reducing any awareness of the Mozart effect, which could possibly lead to research capable of finding a conclusive result.

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