Myths & Facts Flashcards
How many potential parts of the brain are involved in a musical experience?
15
What was Darwin’s theory about the usefulness of music?;
What does Steven Pinker believe?;
What about Alan Harvey?
Attracting mates;
As far as biological cause & effect goes, music is useless; it could vanish from our species & our lifestyle would be virtually unchanged;
It allows cooperative experiences that promote collective expression & emotion
Compare the general areas of the brain that process music as opposed to language;
What does prosody transmit?
Music activates the most primitive parts & language activates the newer neo-cortex;
The emotional code in language; gives information beyond information conveyed in the words
What do researchers Richard Howe, Jane Davidson & John Sloboda say about talent?;
Their research has shown we can’t distinguish between a child born with a specific talent from one who….;
When researching 250 children, some of whom later achieved high levels of accomplishment in music, what did they find?
That it is a myth & doesn’t explain high levels of achievement in music;
Lacks talent but who has undergone extensive training;
Only those who started singing at a younger age distinguished musical achievers from others
Describe the arguments for & against the concept of talent
For: can’t simply be that someone is able to play an instrument well; child prodigies (exceptional levels of achievement early in life); Against: lack of early indications of talent in those who later achieve high levels of success; makes no sense if a child received special opportunities to learn
Tremblay & Gagne found that auditory ability is more inherited than what?;
Coordination, rhythm & fingering memory
Drayna et al. had twins listen to 26 short popular melodies & asked them to score whether the melody was correct or incorrect in pitch. What did they find?
Pitch perception is genetic rather than environment
What were the results of Hambrick & Tucker-Drob study where they examined whether musical accomplishment is determined by genetic make-up or persistent practicing?;
What does this suggest?
There was a correlation between practice & musical accomplishment & that the amount of practice young musicians engaged in was influenced by their genetic make-up;
That the genetic potential for musical accomplishment is most fully expressed & fostered by practice (genetic contains the seed; practice nurtures the talent)
Moore, Burland & Davidson investigated the social context of musical success by looking at young musicians who had given up music lessons & those continuing their tuition. What was found with the unsuccessful students?;
What about the successful ones?
Lack of early parental involvement; late starting age; technically good but unfriendly teachers;
Less pushy first teachers; less relaxed teaching recently; accumulated greater practice by age 11; sustained practice into 4th year
In Moore, Burland & Davidson’s follow up analyses of musicians in a social context, what was found with those who had become professional musicians?
They hadn’t engaged in the most practice, but had a high involvement in concert activities, did more improvisation & had mothers at home in their early years
How did Rauscher, Shaw & Ky’s (93) study on the Mozart Effect result in claims that “music makes you smarter”?;
What did Rauscher & Shaw later explain about this (in 98)?
After college students listened to a 10 min Mozart sonata, they found superior performance on a paper folding & cutting task & increased IQ;
Mozart music only influences spatial tasks that involve perceiving & thinking over time
What model did Rauscher & Shaw base their rationale on & what does it propose?;
According to Schellenberg, is this theory supported by neuropsychological research?
The trion model: exposure to complex music excites cortical firing patterns necessary for spatial temporal reasoning (same brain areas)
No, music is processed independently of spatial activities
When Chabris replicated research on the Mozart Effect, what was concluded?
10 minutes of Mozart listening has no effect on intelligence or reasoning; a small but not statistically significant effect on visual representation (specific to paper folding & cutting with only ¼ of original effect size & small variation in IQ)); & any effects are due to differences in mood & arousal
When Nantais & Schellenberg compared the Mozart Effect to a narrated short story on spatial reasoning performance of the paper task, what was found?;
When mood was additionally measured in Thompson, Schellenberg & Husain’s study, what were the results?
There was no effect; performance was linked to the subjects’ preference (either Mozart or story);
The Mozart effect also disappeared & there was no effect
Explain the Ergogenic & Psychological effects of music
Music improves exercise performance by either delaying fatigue or increasing work capacity; Music influences mood, emotion, affect (pleasure /displeasure), cognition (thought processes) & behaviour
