Does listening to Mozart make babies smarter?

No. The research does not show that playing Mozart to babies, toddlers or unborn children raises their intelligence. A Harvard-reported review found "absolutely no evidence" of an IQ boost from playing Mozart or other music to unborn babies, infants or toddlers. The popular idea grew out of a small experiment on adults, and it was stretched far beyond what that experiment measured. [1]

In 1993 Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw and Katherine Ky published a short paper in Nature. Thirty-six college students listened to ten minutes of a Mozart sonata for two pianos, a relaxation tape, or silence, and then did a spatial reasoning task taken from the Stanford-Binet intelligence test. Scores were highest after Mozart. The task involved imagining how a folded piece of paper with corners cut out would look when unfolded. The authors converted the scores into "IQ equivalents" and wrote that they were 8 to 9 points higher, and they noted the effect did not last beyond 10 to 15 minutes. The participants were adults, not babies. [2]

A 1999 meta-analysis of 16 studies, published in Nature, found that ten minutes of Mozart did not improve general intelligence. It found a small gain in mentally transforming visual images, but the gain was much smaller than first reported and not statistically significant. Rauscher has said some studies supported her finding and others did not, and she has argued that many researchers tested general intelligence when the original claim concerned only shape-unfolding ability over a short time. The McGill article reports that the largest meta-analysis on the topic found nothing. [2]

Studies with preschoolers found that classical music improved paper folding and cutting performance, but children did equally well after hearing stories or children's music. Their performance tracked how much they enjoyed what they heard. This led to the "enjoyment arousal" explanation, which holds that mood and alertness, not classical music itself, drive the short-term effect. [3]

A randomized trial of 40 premature infants played Mozart's double piano sonata twice a day for 14 days. It found no significant difference in the time to regain birth weight or to reach full oral feeding. A review of music in newborn intensive care found inconclusive benefits overall, partly because the studies differed so much in method, and it found no evidence that a particular piece such as a Mozart sonata helps every infant. [4] [5]

Active music learning is a different matter. Researcher Lois Hetland concluded that learning music in school can affect spatial reasoning, with a stronger effect when students learn to read musical notation. Rauscher and Shaw also reported that children who learned piano improved at moving shapes in space. This concerns lessons, not passive listening. [1] [2]