Something else to add to the "Mozart effect" file. The original source was:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/990825/ca_mozart__1.html
--Steve Jones
----------------
Keeping Mozart in Mind Sets the Record Straight on the
Mozart Effect and Related Research
- Book Shows How Music Can Enhance Thinking and Creativity -
IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Keeping Mozart in Mind, a new landmark
book by Dr. Gordon Shaw to be released in September, presents the latest
scientific findings on the effects of music on reasoning and learning, and the
real story behind the ``Mozart effect'' research. Dr. Shaw, world-renowned for
his leadership in the music and the brain studies and discoverer of the
``Mozart effect,'' starts with the theme ``music as a window into higher brain
function.'' Building from that, he shows how music can help us understand how
the brain works and how music may enhance how we think, reason, and create.
This interdisciplinary book represents over 25 years of Dr. Shaw's music/brain
research and includes key information from his original research and that of
other scientists around the world. Offering the only comprehensive overview of
the relevant scientific research, Keeping Mozart in Mind is written in a style
that makes this information accessible to not only researchers and clinicians,
but also educators and parents.
Keeping Mozart in Mind is divided into five distinct topics. Part I gives the
essential ideas of Dr. Shaw's theme that music can enhance our ability to think
and reason. He supports this theme with history, anecdotes, and interviews as
well as introducing key ideas and experiments. Part II contains the more
technical aspects of how music enhances learning. Made readable and accessible
to everyone, Keeping Mozart in Mind contains a complete glossary, notes and a
brief guide at the beginning of each chapter to outline the important points
and objectives. Part III contains all the details of the dramatic behavior
experiments that were performed with humans involving music. Part IV presents
the results and proposed studies that are crucial to the detailed scientific
understanding of what is happening in the brain. Part V presents the future of
music as an influence upon higher brain function. Included in this section is a
look at education along with Dr. Shaw's conclusion on how music might enhance
child brain development.
Keeping Mozart in Mind includes key information about scientific research
studies that have shown some remarkable results, including:
-- In March 1999, Neurological Research published the latest study headed
by Shaw, reporting that second graders who played the piano and the
S.T.A.R.(TM) interactive game developed by Matthew Peterson saw their
scores rise 27% on proportional math and fractions tests.
-- In February 1997, a study from Dr. Shaw's laboratory, published in
Neurological Research, announced that six months of piano keyboard
training caused enhancement of spatial-temporal reasoning in preschool
children: they scored 34% higher on puzzle-solving tests.
-- In October 1993, Dr. Shaw and Dr. Frances Rauscher published an article
in Nature. It announced that a study done with college students showed
that listening to the Mozart Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, (K. 448)
caused a subsequent enhancement in reasoning. This "Mozart effect," as
coined by the media, created worldwide interest. It quickly became
part of the popular folklore that was referred to in comic strips,
advertisements, music CDs, and more.
Excerpt from the Preface: ``This book is our story of higher brain function:
how humans think, reason, and create. It is based on a structured model of the
brain that Xiaodan Leng and I proposed in 1991; it demonstrates how music is a
window into higher brain function. This book is not about music, but about how
music can help us understand how the brain works and how music can enhance how
we think, reason, and create. We are at the very beginning of this quest: much
additional research remains to be done. However, I believe that we have made
considerable progress and that all the pieces of the story presented here fit
into a coherent and compelling picture.''
Excerpt from the Prologue: ``The ideas presented in this book cross many
boundaries, including brain theory, neurophysiology, child development, music
cognition, education, teaching of music, teaching of math and science,
neuropathology, psychology, and the evolution of the brain. But why should I
write this book now when we are at the very early and controversial stages of
this quest to understand how we think and reason by using music as a window
into higher brain function? The reason is that I believe this book brings
together the diverse experimental data and theory that support this model. Let
me present it as a substantial number of pieces in a puzzle: Looking at each
piece of the puzzle, a careful thinker would have many questions and doubts
about the results from any individual piece. Furthermore, the pieces are not
big enough to make the final result obvious. However, by carefully examining
each piece and the relationship among the pieces, I believe it becomes
extremely likely that we are on the right track. In fact, I hope that this book
will serve as the necessary guide in completing the puzzle of higher brain
function.''
The book is accompanied by a CD-ROM that includes the first movement of
Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, (K. 448), performed by Murray
Perahia and Radu Lupu, courtesy of Sony Classical(TM), and a special
descriptive version of S.T.A.R.(Spatial-Temporal Animation Reasoning), an
interactive software program developed by Matthew Peterson, that was used in
combination with piano lessons in a recent study where elementary age children
showed significant improvement in the ability to learn difficult math concepts.
Dr. Gordon Shaw is a professor emeritus in the Department of Physics at the
University of California, Irvine and president of the Music Intelligence Neural
Development Institute, Irvine. For more information, visit the Institute's web
site at http://www.mindinst.org.
Keeping Mozart in Mind is available in bookstores September 1999, c.400pp.,
casebound/CD-ROM enclosed, $49.95, ISBN:
0-12-639290-0.
----------------
===
-----------
Steve Jones
C.E. Jordan High School
Durham, NC 27707
This Week In Psychology
http://www.jordan.durham.k12.nc.us/psychology/thisweek.html
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com
