Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I've researched a bit about the "Mozart Effect" but my research question is "Does listening to classical music help or hinder concentration and performance on cognitive tasks?". Would studying more about the "Mozart Effect" help me with my project, because all the information i find is mostly about infants listening to the sonatas and making them smarter in their future life. Any tips or information anyone may know about this research question would be helpful. Thank you very much.

Hi Sciencewiz19,

I apologize for the delay in responding to your inquiry.

You have an interesting idea for a science project, but I do understand the problem you are having finding information. Most of information that you have found about the effect of music is not found in the scientific literature, so has not been confirmed by doing controlled experiments.

I recommend that you go to Google Scholar and type in a search for "effect of music." This will bring up abstracts and articles that have been published in peer-reviewed journals. Please design your experiment so that is it similar to other published papers and includes a controlled experiment with a dependent variable that can be measured.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... dure.shtml

And since you will be working with humans, please do read the information on the rules for doing experiments with humans:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ects.shtml

I would be very cautious about using the term "Mozart effect," in your science project display board unless it is very clear that you have done a carefully controlled investigation.

I hope this helps. Please post again in this topic if you have any other questions.


Donna Hardy