Music lessons:
In Study 1 (N = 147), duration of music lessons was correlated positively with IQ and with academic ability among 6- to 11-year-olds, even when potential confounding variables (i.e., family income, parents’ education, involvement in nonmusical activities) were held constant. In Study 2 (N = 150), similar but weaker associations between playing music in childhood and intellectual functioning were evident among undergraduates. In both studies, there was no evidence that musical involvement had stronger associations with some aspects of cognitive ability (e.g., mathematical, spatial-temporal, verbal) than with others. These results indicate that formal exposure to music in childhood is associated positively with IQ and with academic performance and that such associations are small but general and long lasting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)
Source: “Long-Term Positive Associations Between Music Lessons and IQ” from “Journal of Educational Psychology”
If you want a good book on the mind I recommend A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives.
Does Talking Back May Lead to Smarter Kids?
Does absurdist literature make you smarter?
Why do we sometimes feel smarter than everybody else and sometimes dumber?
You should follow me on Twitter here or subscribe to this blog’s feed. If you’re a regular reader please support the blog by doing your book and movie shopping at the store. You’ll find all my recommendations there. Here are the site’s most popular posts of all time.
