Is Listening to Mozart the Only Way to Enhance Spatial Reasoning?

Since 1993, controversy has surrounded the Mozart Effect that refers to enhanced spatial processing following listening to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos. Some researchers have replicated the effect while others have not. The present study represents an attempt to replicate and generalize the Mozart Effect and to examine the role of participants' expectations. Experimental groups were matched for musical experience and preference, and a Verbal and a Spatial Reasoning condition were used as control groups. Contrary to our hypotheses, the analyses showed that participants' expectations did not enhance performance on a spatial reasoning task. Further, enhanced spatial reasoning occurred following a variety of conditions, not just after listening to Mozart.