Intelligence Quotient - Music and IQ

Music and IQ

Musical training in childhood has been found to correlate with higher than average IQ. In a 2004 study conducted by E. Glenn Schellenberg, results showed that 6 year old children who received musical training (voice or piano lessons) had an average increase in IQ of 7.0 points while children who received alternative training (i.e. drama) or no training had an average increase in IQ of only 4.3 points (which may be consequence of the children entering grade school) as indicated by full scale IQ. Children were tested using Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Third Edition, Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement and Parent Rating Scale of the Behavioral Assessment System for Children.

Listening to classical music has also been found to increase IQ; specifically spatial ability. In 1994 Frances Rauscher and Gorden Shaw found that when college students listened to 10 minutes of Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos, there is an IQ increase of 8 to 9 points on the spatial subtest on the Standford-Binet Intelligence Scale. However, this effect is a short term effect and usually lasts no longer than 10 to 15 minutes. This phenomenon was coined the Mozart effect.