Music means a lot to most people whether you play an instrument, sing or just listen to it. While I am not musically talented, you will find me with earbuds in my ears as I walk around campus or music playing in my dorm room most of the time. While pop and rock music is only recently being discovered as beneficial while studying, classical music and the Mozart Effect were recognized years ago.
When the study began in 1993 at a university in California, scientist Francis Rauscher made 36 students listen to either Mozart’s double piano sonata, a relaxation tape made to lower stress, or silence for 10 minutes. They then took an spatial temporal IQ test that showed subjects who listened to music for 10 minutes scored about 8 or 9 points higher than those who listened to the relaxation instructions or nothing at all. The belief is that Mozart’s music helps to improve spacial temporal reasoning. This was further researched by use of rats. They created four groups which either listened to Mozart, Philip Glass’ minimalist music (which I can only handle listening to for less than a minute…), white noise or silence. They then had to navigate a maze and found that the group that listened to Mozart completed the maze faster and with less errors.
Reasoning for this has to do with the part of the brain that is activated by classical music and how this region overlaps with the part of the brain used for spatial temporal tasks. Scientists say that listening to classical music would “prime the activation” of these regions of your brain.
So while classical music has been proven to help with spatial temporal tasks, it has also been found helpful when studying math because it can aid in retaining more information and concentrating for longer. Pop is best for science and foreign language studying while rock and pop, which are typically more upbeat and emotion evoking, are helpful for english and the arts because it activates the creative, right side of your brain.
While the effects of music are not guaranteed to be long-lasting, it’s worth a shot in using it to help you study. I know for me it helps to at least relieve some stress and make doing school work a bit more enjoyable. So long as it is not a distraction, might as well try it out!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1281386/
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130807-can-music-make-you-smarter
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50155076n