Are Rats More Intelligent Than Humans?
An experiment on laboratory rats revealed that they have a natural predisposition towards classical music. The experiment consisted in placing two boxes, connected by a tube, playing Bach’s ‘Air on the G string’ in one box, and rock music in the other. Most rats chose to go in the box with Bach’s music, even when the music switched from one box to another.
(from Laurence O'Donnell - Music and the Brain).
In a study carried out at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Department of Psychology rats were exposed in utero plus 60 days post-partum to one of the following types of music : –
1. Mozart Piano Sonata in D major (K.448)
2. A Philip Glass composition
3. White noise or Silence
They were then tested for five days, three trials per day, in a multiple T-maze. By day three, the rats exposed to the Mozart music completed the maze more rapidly and with fewer errors than the rats in the other groups. The difference increased in magnitude by day five This suggests that repeated exposure to Mozart induces improved spatial-temporal learning in rats.
"Improved maze learning through early music exposure in rats" - National Center for Biotechnology Information.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9664590
Simon Heather
E-mail - simonheather@onetel.com
Web Site - www.simonheather.co.uk
