A Test for Lateralization of the Mozart Effect.

The Mozart effect involves the enhancement of spatial processing after listening to a Mozart piano sonata (Rauscher, Dhaw, and Ky, 1993). Efforts to replicate the Mozart effect have been mixed, possibly due to differences in dependent variable operationalization across studies or large individual differences in magnitude of effect. Chabria and Kosslyn (1998) found that coordinate spatial processing was mediated by the right cerebral hemisphere, while the left hemisphere mediated categorical spatial processing, and that these processes could be affected by hemispheric bias in the projection of task-relevant information through the use of colored filters. The present study (conducted with 36 undergraduate students with less than two years of musical training) tested whether presentation of spatial task items on red versus green backgrounds could influence the Mozart effect as measured with a paper folding and cutting task. The use of the filters had no reliable effect on performance. (Contains 10 references.) (Author/BT)