Is the bandwidth for timbre invariance only one octave?

Timbre invariance refers to the ability to determine whether two notes at different pitches were played or sung by the same instrument or voice. Handel and Erickson (2001) reported that nonmusician listeners heard pairs of notes as coming uniformly from different instruments when the pitches were separated by an octave or more; they concluded that the bandwidth of timbre invariance was only one octave. Here we replicate that study with methodological refinements and include musicians as well as nonmusicians. We presented listeners with pairs of notes from two instruments (horn and bassoon) spanning a 2.5 octave range, and listeners judged whether two notes were the same pitch and produced by the same instrument. Nonmusicians replicated Handel and Erickson’s result of a decline in timbre invariance beyond 1.0 octave, whereas musicians’ performance declined less—to about 80% correct at 2.5 octave. Pitch judgments did not vary across the range and were more accurate for musicians than for nonmusicians. The difference between musicians and nonmusicians in timbre judgments suggests caution in stating a range for the operation of timbre invariance

Listening to Mozart Does Not Enhance Backwards Digit Span Performance

Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky recently reported that exposure to brief periods of music by Mozart produced a temporary increase in performance on tasks taken from the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale-IV. The present study examined whether this effect occurred in performance on a backwards digit span cask. In a within-subjects design 36 undergraduates were exposed to 10-min. periods of Mozart music, a recording of rain, or silence. After each stimulus period, undergraduates had three attempts to hear and recall different 9-digit strings in reverse order. No significant differences among treatment conditions were found. There was a significant effect of practice. Results are discussed in terms of the need to isolate the conditions responsible for production of the Mozart effect

Changes in Perceived Color with Intermittent Illumination

Using 24 observers with normal color vision, perceived shifts in hue were determined for a yellow-red, green, and blue-green at intermittencies of 5, 10, and 20 cps. The hue shift for yellow-red was consistent with the hue shift exhibited by a deuteranomalous observer while the hue shift for green and blue-green was consistent with that exhibited by a protanomalous observer

Prelude or requiem for the ‘Mozart effect’?

Rauscher et al. reported [1] that brief exposure to a Mozart piano sonata produces a temporary increase in spatial reasoning scores, amounting to the equivalent of 8-9 IQ points on the Stanford-Binet IQ scale [2]. Early attempts to confirm this 'Mozart effect' were unsuccessful [3, 4, 5, 6]. Rauscher et al. subsequently restricted their account to an improvement in spatial-temporal reasoning, as measured by the Paper Folding and Cutting task [7]. We use procedures modelled on the original report to show that there is little evidence for a direct effect of music exposure on reasoning ability

Failure to Confirm the Rauscher and Shaw Description of Recovery of the Mozart Effect

The Mozart effect is an increase in spatial reasoning scores detected immediately after listening to the first movement of a Mozart piano sonata. Rauscher and Shaw (1998) suggested that failure to produce a Mozart effect could arise from carryover effects of a spatial reasoning pretest which may interfere with the effect of listening to Mozart. They cited an unpublished study in which a verbal distractor was inserted between the pretest and listening condition, and the manipulation produced the recovery of a Mozart effect. This experiment attempted to confirm the unpublished study. 206 college students were exposed to one of three sequences, pretest-Verbal distractor material-Mozart, pretest-Mozart-Verbal distractor material, and pretest-Verbal distractor material. An immediate posttest indicated no significant difference on solution of paper folding and cutting items among the three groups. The results do not support Rauscher and Shaw (1998). Our negative results are consistent with prior failures in other laboratories to produce a Mozart effect

Arousal and Mood Factors in the "Mozart Effect"

Some investigators of the "Mozart effect" have not controlled for the influence of differences in arousal or mood induced by treatment conditions. Studies by Rideout and colleagues reported differences in spatial reasoning after listening to a Mozart sonata compared against a relaxation instruction tape. The conditions may have affected subjects’ arousal differentially, with the sonata increasing arousal and the relaxation instructions decreasing arousal, which could have affected spatial reasoning performance. Evidence is cited in support of this suggestion and indicates the importance of analyzing the influence of arousal differences in Mozart effect research

The Forum

Case Vignette: The Class That (Probably) Cheated: Professor Dill's Dilemma. After an exam in a class of 160 students, 7 students independently approached Professor Dill to inform him that "massive cheating" had occurred in the back of the room. Reports of the number of involved students ranged from 8 to 15. None of the students, however, was willing to name names. Professor Dill asked his teaching assistant, who was walking the aisles during the exam, if she saw anything. She replied that some students seemed uncomfortable and moved around in their seats, but she did not observe any cheating

Do rats show a Mozart effect?

The “Mozart effect” is an increase in spatial reasoning scores after listening to a Mozart piano sonata. Both the production and interpretation of the effect are controversial. Many studies have failed to replicate the original effect. Other studies have explained a Mozart effect as being caused by changes in arousal or differences in preferences of the listener. F. H. Rauscher, K. D. Robinson, and J. J. Jens (1998) reported that rats learned to complete a T-maze more quickly if they had been exposed in utero and reared hearing a Mozart piano sonata. They concluded that the result indicated a direct effect of the music on brain development and contradicted competing accounts of arousal or preference. This article is an analysis of the experiment by Rauscher et al. The in utero exposure would have been ineffective because rats are born deaf. A comparison of human and rat audiograms, in the context of the frequencies produced by a piano, suggests that adult rats are deaf to most notes in the sonata. The successful performance of the Mozart group may be explained by the incomplete use of random assignment of subjects to groups and by experimenter effects in the construction of groups. The results of Rauscher et al. (1998) do not provide strong support for the existence of the Mozart effect

Unconvincing evidence that rats show a Mozart effect

F. H. RAUSCHER, J. D. ROBINSON, AND J. J. JENS (1998) REPORTED that rats learned to complete a T-maze more quickly if they had been reared listening to a Mozart piano sonata. They interpreted this result as a demonstration of a “Mozart effect” in rats. Steele (2003) compared rat and human audiograms, in the context of piano note frequencies, and suggested that rats were deaf to most of the notes (69%) in the sonata. Steele concluded that the learning differences among the groups were not due to a Mozart effect. Rauscher (2006) argued for the use of a different rat audiogram which would increase the number of notes potentially heard to 57%. This is not a refutation of Steele’s conclusion that rats would not hear major portions of the sonata. These missing portions will deform the music structure heard by the rats. Whatever the rats hear, it is not the sonata written by Mozart. Additional comments are made about the current status of the Mozart-effect literature with human subjects

Effects of Agricultural Practices on Nutrient Concentrations and Loads in Two Small Watersheds, Northwestern Arkansas

The water quality of two small, adjacent watersheds was monitored to determine the effect of land use on nutrient loads and flow-weighted mean concentrations. Poultry litter and liquid swine waste are surface applied as fertilizer to pastures that are used for hay production and beef cattle grazing. The study area is located in northwestern Arkansas, east central Washington County. Cannon Creek, the less influenced watershed (628 hectares), contains 11% pasture; whereas, Shumate Creek, the more influenced watershed (589 hectares), contains 22% pasture and receives approximately four times more land applied animal waste as fertilizer. The remaining land cover in both watersheds is primarily hardwood forest. Shumate Creek lad higher nutrient concentrations and greater nutrient mass transport. Stormflow transports a larger percentage of the nutrient load than baseflow; e.g., during the month of April more than 30% of the total phosphorus (TP) load was transported in less than four days of storm flow at the Shumate Creek site. The total pasture area, the proximity of pastures to streams, and he intensity of pasture management (i.e., the rate and timing of manure applications) are important aspects to consider when monitoring water quality