Music and Cognitive Abilities

Does music make you smarter? Music listening and music lessons have been claimed to confer intellectual advantages. Any association between music and intellectual functioning would be notable only if the benefits apply reliably to nonmusical abilities and if music is unique in producing the effects. The available evidence indicates that music listening leads to enhanced performance on a variety of cognitive tests, but that such effects are shortterm and stem from the impact of music on arousal level and mood, which, in turn, affect cognitive performance; experiences other than music listening have similar effects. Music lessons in childhood tell a different story. They are associated with small but general and long-lasting intellectual benefits that cannot be attributed to obvious confounding variables such as family income and parents’ education. The mechanisms underlying this association have yet to be determined. KEYWORDS—music cognition; intelligence; cognitive development People’s eagerness for quick fixes can be seen in the seemingly irrational appeal of crash diets, get-rich-quick schemes, and getsmart-fast programs. Is the claim of music as a route to enhanced intelligence yet another self-improvement fantasy? In the pages that follow, I outline the origins of the claim and evaluate the available evidence. Intellectual benefits of exposure to music would be noteworthy if (a) they extend to nonmusical abilities, (b) they are systematic and reliable, and (c) they are more likely to result from hearing or playing music than from other activities. Unlike in other cultures, where virtually everyone participates in music making, musical experiences in Western society typically involve listening and, only in some cases, lessons and performing. Music listening is ubiquitous, both purposefully (e.g., listening to the radio) and incidentally (e.g., background music in stores and restaurants). By contrast, relatively few individuals take music lessons for several years. The consequences of music listening are likely to differ quantitatively and qualitatively from those of music lessons.