Mozart may not be the greatest musician in the world, but his "Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major" has become the most famous prenatal music in the world. It was even used to wake up the Israeli Prime Minister who fell into a coma due to a stroke. Sharon, the doctor also played Mozart in his hospital room. In the past 10 years, Mozart's beautiful music has not only been listened to over and over again, but has also been considered to have miraculous therapeutic effects on many diseases ranging from acne to Alzheimer's disease. There has even been a so-called "Mozart effect" - think Listening to Mozart's music can increase people's IQ, improve human body functions and spatial perception.

"Listening to Mozart can make people smarter" has become a belief that many people firmly believe, but some experts have expressed doubts about this.

This newspaper’s comprehensive report Katia Eliade is an artist living in Paris, France. She has been in trouble recently and feels a lack of creativity, as if she has lost all feeling. Even Eliade herself couldn't explain why she couldn't use blue or green in her abstract paintings.

Starting last spring, Eliade underwent an unusual treatment: listening to Mozart's music for 2 hours a day for 3 consecutive weeks. Eliade wears special vibrating headphones to listen, and sometimes removes some of the darker passages. Regarding the effect of the treatment, the 33-year-old said: "I am calmer when dealing with myself and others, and I feel more comfortable doing anything." Blue and green have returned to Eliade's canvases.

Listening to Mozart can cure ADHD

Jackie Hindley, who lives in London, also believes in Mozart’s music and believes that her 6-year-old son Lawrence has benefited a lot from it. Hindley said Lawrence had been developmentally delayed since childhood and suffered from ADHD and a speech impediment: When someone spoke to him, Lawrence would think silently for half an hour before answering. After several sessions of therapy with Mozart's music, Hindley said: "He now loves to talk and can respond immediately to other people's questions. He has made very significant progress."

The book "Brain Prescription" written by Daniel Amen, a famous American clinical neuroscientist, also mentioned that a study found that listening to Mozart's music is helpful in treating ADHD in children. The group of children who listened to Mozart's music had significantly fewer "theta" brain waves (often excessive in ADHD patients), became more focused, had greatly improved ability to control their emotions, and had greater social skills. improve.

A Chicago neurosurgeon has done research on this and found that certain pieces of Mozart's music can reduce the severity and frequency of epilepsy in some patients. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, also found that some Alzheimer's patients performed better on intelligence tests after listening to Mozart's music for 10 minutes.

Can Grape understand Mozart?

Many of the magical effects of Mozart's music are anecdotal. The famous French actor Gerard Depardieu is said to have said that Mozart's music helped him overcome a childhood stutter. Some even believe that Mozart’s music has a magical effect on growing grapes. Carlo Cagnazzi, a vineyard owner in Tuscany, Italy, has been playing Mozart's music to his grapes for the past five years. When he was young, Cagnatz also carried an accordion and played Mozart to the grapes during the grape ripening season. He said: "Playing Mozart music day and night produced a dramatic effect. The grapes ripened faster, and it also drove away the grapes." Parasites and Birds."

Craze: The Famous "Mozart Effect"

The most widely circulated and controversial one reported by this newspaper so far is the so-called "Mozart Effect." ”——believes that Mozart’s music can improve people’s intelligence and make children smarter. The scientific evidence supporting this view first appeared in the journal Nature in 1993. An article stated that after playing the first movement of Mozart's "Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major" to college students, their spatial reasoning abilities improved significantly. improve. For example, the IQ scores of college students who listened to music increased by 8 or 9 points compared with those who listened to relaxation instructions and no music. This phenomenon was later widely disseminated as the "Mozart Effect".

The most popular prenatal education music

France Rauscher, the main author of this paper and associate professor at Wisconsin State University, is also a cellist. Since then, she has used Similar experiments have been done with rats.

The researchers played the same tune to baby mice in the womb and continued listening to it for two months after birth, before placing the mice in a maze. As a result, the mice that listened to Mozart found the exit faster than the other three groups of mice that had not heard Mozart's music.

For more than ten years since then, Rauscher's research has caused a storm in the academic world, and many scholars have revised or criticized her findings. Regardless, Rauscher's research gained widespread media attention and led to a pop psychology craze. Now Mozart has become the most popular prenatal education music. The "Mozart Effect" has also attracted great attention from government officials. In 1998, the Georgia state government in the United States began distributing free classical music CDs to every newborn, and there are similar plans in Colorado and Florida.

Don Campbell, an American teacher who has published two best-selling books related to the "Mozart Effect", pointed out that scientific research shows that when a person listens to music, many different parts of the brain are active, among which Some of the most active parts overlap with those active when people reason spatially.

The authors say the results were misinterpreted

However, Rauscher has recently begun to revise her original conclusion, and she believes that the brain benefits of listening to Mozart may be no more than that of doing certain commands. The general reaction one gets when enjoying things is quite similar.

She was angry that her findings had been misinterpreted, saying, "No one ever said listening to Mozart made people smarter." She explained that her research only showed that the subjects' There is a temporary and limited improvement in spatial reasoning abilities rather than a fundamental improvement in IQ.

Parisian physician Alfred Tomatis was a pioneer in the use of Mozart's music in therapy, using Mozart's music to treat a variety of childhood defects and adult illnesses, including depression. At present, Poland has introduced Tomatis' treatment method nationwide, mainly to help children overcome some learning difficulties. But this type of therapy is only officially recognized in a few countries, and traditional music therapists are skeptical.

Music Therapy

It is said that Ouyang Xiu, a famous writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, suffered from depression. Later, he learned to play the piano from a friend. Over time, his depression naturally improved. Since the 1940s, people have gradually used music as a medical method. Music therapy can be clinically divided into simple music therapy, music electrotherapy, and music electroacupuncture therapy.

Pure music therapy is to achieve the purpose of treating diseases simply by listening to music. It allows patients to listen to different music according to different diseases they suffer from. It can treat emotional uneasiness, mental depression, neurasthenia, insomnia, gastrointestinal disorders, etc.

Music electrotherapy is when patients receive music therapy and music current therapy at the same time. The current and music are synchronized. It is commonly used clinically to treat neuralgia, neurasthenia, headache, insomnia, early hypertension, sprains and other diseases.

Music electroacupuncture therapy is a combination of music therapy and acupuncture therapy. During music electroacupuncture treatment, the patient listens to music with his ears while undergoing music electroacupuncture treatment. Mainly used for neuralgia, muscle atrophy and other diseases and electroacupuncture anesthesia. (Comprehensive report from this newspaper)

Mystery: The frequency of music repetition is consistent with brain waves

Why the focus of the debate is Mozart instead of classical music like Bach, Beethoven or Chopin Where is the master?

Music therapists do not believe in the "Mozart Effect"

In the formal music therapy world, the "Mozart Effect" is regarded as an almost superstitious phenomenon that has been over-hyped. . Registered music therapists often allow children with autism or other patients to compose their own music as a way to express themselves and communicate with others. In the UK, music therapists were officially recognized by the government in 1999. Music therapy expert Gary Ansdell pointed out: "The focus of music therapy is active music creation rather than passive listening to music." Ansdell was quite disdainful of the "Mozart Effect". He said: "The actual situation is much worse than this. It’s much more complicated than simply chalking it up to the Mozart effect.”

In fact, a lot of music is thought to have therapeutic effects. But John Hughes, a neurologist at the University of Illinois who specializes in epilepsy, thinks Mozart works best.

Hughes once played the same Mozart "Double Piano Sonata in D Major" to his patients as in Rauscher's experiment. He was surprised to find that 29 of 36 patients had their symptoms relieved. Hughes also experimented with other classical music, but he found that only Mozart had a sustained, noticeable effect on his patients.

The key to the problem, Hughes believes, is the frequency with which Mozart's music is repeated. Hughes said: "His music is relatively simple, always repeating a certain melody multiple times, and repeating it in a pattern that our brains like." Research has found that Mozart's music pattern repeats once every 20 to 30 seconds on average. This is consistent with the length of brain waves and the timing of certain activities in the central nervous system. This may be the secret to the magical effect of Mozart's music.