We decided to investigate whether listening to different musical genres can actually impact intelligence, as there is a common belief that classical music is preferred by intellectuals while rap is associated with people who do not possess outstanding mental abilities.
When discussing the influence of music on intelligence, many often refer to the “Mozart effect”, which was described in 1991 by French researcher Alfred Tomatis in his book “Why Mozart“. Tomatis believed that classical music could have a beneficial effect on an individual and that it could be used to “train” the brain and even treat some diseases.
In 1993, researchers Francis Rauscher, Gordon Shaw, and Katherine Ky from Columbia University became interested in the Mozart effect. They conducted a series of tests on spatial-temporal thinking (one of the blocks of the Eysenck test) with three groups of volunteers. The first group had silence before the test, the second group performed relaxation exercises, and the third group listened to Mozart’s sonatas. The group that listened to classical music showed the best results in the test, with higher levels of concentration and problem-solving speed than the other groups. However, the Mozart effect was found to be short-lived, with participants from all three groups showing similar results after just 15 minutes. Although the original study did not measure the IQ level of the volunteers, the publication of the experiment in the journal Nature led many media outlets, including the New York Times, to report an increase in IQ after listening to classical music.
Additional research has been conducted on the Mozart effect. In 1997, Professor Kenneth Steele from Appalachian State University performed a meta-analysis of existing studies on the subject. Steele observed that the results of such tests are highly inconsistent, with some experiments showing that listening to classical music briefly improves test performance compared to silence, while others show the opposite effect.
In 1999, psychologist Christopher Chabris from Harvard University questioned the validity of the Mozart effect. Chabris conducted a meta-analysis of available publications on the relationship between music and IQ and concluded that classical music cannot influence intelligence levels. Although participants did experience a small cognitive improvement, the researcher suggested that it was due to emotional arousal rather than the music itself. The music raised the participants’ mood, allowing them to perform better on the tests.
In 2010, scientists from the University of Vienna conducted a meta-analysis of over 40 experiments. The researchers compared the effects of classical music, music from other genres, and silence, but they failed to confirm the existence of the Mozart effect.
American researchers conducted a study in 2012 to compare the effects of classical music and pop music on memory. They found that pop music was more effective in improving memory than classical music.
The University of Oxford conducted a survey in 2019, in which 467 high school students were asked about their music preferences and then underwent an IQ test. The results revealed that those who preferred rap music “performed the worst on the test,” as stated by the researchers. The study did not conclude that rap music decreases intelligence; instead, it observed a correlation between music preference and intelligence level. The researchers noted that teenagers with higher IQs tend to prefer jazz, classical, and rock music, while those with lower IQs tend to prefer rap and hip-hop.
At present, there is no scientific evidence supporting the claim that classical music enhances intelligence and rap music reduces mental ability among its listeners. Nonetheless, classical music can briefly enhance spatial thinking while rap may disturb concentration.
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