Brain On Music: Rock Vs. Mozart

rightscomet (64)modCountry Rep. - Indiain Inspire People • 3 years ago

“Silence is a source of great strength.” – Lao Tzu

David Merrell's Experiment

David Merrell, a student, wanted to find out the effect of music on mice. So he took 72 mice and divided them into three groups of 24 mice and made them navigate through a maze. All of the mice completed the race in about ten minutes.

David Merrell then played hard-rock music (10 hours a day) to the first group, Mozart to the second group, and no music at all to the third group.

In three weeks, he got the result:

The control group (no music at all) navigated the maze in five minutes, the Mozart group in one and a half minutes, and the hard-rock group in thirty minutes. The Mozart group was the fastest while the hard-rock group was the slowest.

"I had to cut my project short," David Merrell said, "because all the hard-rock mice killed each other", continuing,
"none of the classical mice did that".

What then will be the effect of the music on the human brain?

Patty Hearst

The story of Patty Hearst (Newsweek Feb 16, 1974) reveals something about that. This woman from a wealthy family was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Shortly after her capture, she helped her kidnappers rob a bank.

The kidnappers kept Patty's nervous system at maximum stress by the continual playing of loud rock music. And, according to Dr. William Sargant, a person whose nervous system is under constant pressure can "inhibit" and "exhibit paradoxical brain activity -- bad becomes good and vice versa".

"And that", Sargant argues, "is precisely what happened to Patty".

Music and the brain

"Scientists are finding that the human brain is pre-wired for music," according to Newsweek July 2000, "The brain seems to be a sponge for music and like a sponge in water is changed by it."