Studying Music Affects IQ
Posted on August 31, 2004
Filed Under Education, Music |
I think it’s widely agreed that children who study arts tend to have higher IQs and perform better in school than those children who don’t. The question has always been whether there is just a correlation or if this is the result of a cause-effect relationship.
A study at the University of Toronto hypothesized the cause-effect relationship: studying music enhances a child’s IQ. The study involved advertising for volunteers and setting up two control groups, one whose members received drama lessons and another group whose members were offered no lessons. The group receiving music lessons were split between keyboard and voice. The children were all six years old.
The study confirmed the hypothesis. The students taking music lessons had an increase in IQ while the control groups did not. The research also showed that while there was no effect on the IQ of the students taking drama lessons, the kids in that control group did exhibit an increase of social skills higher than any other group in the study.
For those who want to read the actual study, here is the research report from the journal Psychological Science.
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