Does Music Predictability Improve Spatial-Temporal Reasoning?

In 1993, it was found that Mozart’s music temporarily enhanced performance on spatialtemporal reasoning tasks. This effect later became termed the Mozart Effect. Since then, the mechanisms of the Mozart Effect have been hotly debated among the scientific community. Recent research has called for studying the Mozart Effect by analyzing music as a series of components. The present study took the components of music into account by testing if predictable music could enhance spatial-temporal reasoning compared to non-predictable music. Participants were administered a task designed to test spatial-temporal reasoning after listening to either predictable or non-predictable music. Additionally, as a control condition, they performed the same task after listening to a short story. Listening to music did not affect reasoning performance, regardless of the predictability of the music. The results indicate that predictability in music alone may not be a major element of the Mozart Effect