A popular theory that listening to Mozart will improve your reasoning skills has taken a hit. After trying to replicate the original research on which
the theory was based, researchers have concluded that the music has no effect on the way students answer typical IQ test questions.

Ever since researchers reported in 1993 that college students did better on spatial reasoning tests immediately after listening to Mozart's Sonata
for Two Pianos in D Major, the so-called "Mozart effect" has enjoyed a spectacular career as pop science. Governor Zell Miller of Georgia
promoted buying classical music for every infant in the state, and record stores touted CDs that were "scientifically proven" to boost brainpower.

But other scientists, using various protocols, had trouble finding a significant effect. And some argued any effect might be explained by a positive
mood induced by Mozart. To sort these issues out, psychologist Kenneth Steele of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, went
back to the original protocol used by psychologist Frances Rauscher of the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and her colleagues. Steele gave the
spatial reasoning test to 125 college students. Two days later, he retested them, priming some students with the Mozart piece, while others got
silence, and a third group heard music by Philip Glass.

The improvement was essentially the same for all three groups, Steele reports in the July issue of Psychological Science. "I was very surprised
when I did not get the effect at all," he says.

But Lois Hetland, a cognitive psychologist at Harvard University, believes the jury is still out. She says it remains to be explained why 26 of 27
studies, including Steele's own, have found some benefit to listening to Mozart--although in many cases the difference was not statistically
significant. The researchers agree, though, that the public reaction has been overblown. "It's premature at best for policy decisions to be made on
the Mozart effect," says Rauscher.