Reexamination of the Effect of Mozart's Music on Spatial-Task Performance

Abstract The spatial reasoning of 22 college undergraduates who had listened to a presentation of Mozart's music was examined under carefully controlled experimental conditions. Each participant performed a pencil-and-paper maze task after a 10-min presentation of each of three listening conditions: a piano concerto by Mozart, repetitive relaxation music, and silence. Mazes varied in complexity of solution and size. Limited support for the previously obtained enhancing effect of listening to Mozart's music was revealed in measures of performance accuracy on this spatial task, whereas no effect was found for either the number of maze recursions or the overall quality of maze solutions. These findings are discussed in relation to the need for further replication of the effect before strong claims of generalizability may be made.