SUFFOLK, Va. - Your mom was right.
Rock ‘n’ roll really does rot your brain.
snip
The results: The control group shaved five
minutes from its original time.
The mice that navigated the maze with Mozart
knocked 8 1/2 minutes off their time. But the group
listening to hard rock bumped through the maze,
dazed and confused, taking an average of 30
minutes, tripling the amount of time it previously
took to complete the maze. Most noticeably, the
hard rock mice didn’t sniff the air to find the trails
of others that came before them.
“It was like the music dulled their senses,” David
said. “It shows point-blank that hard rock has a
negative effect all around. I can’t think of a positive
effect that hard rock has” on learning.
In fact, David thinks that the negative effects go
well beyond learning.
During the four-month experiment David housed
each mouse in separate aquariums. That’s because
last year, for a similar project, he kept each group
together. The results were horrific.
“I had to cut my project short because all the hard
rock mice killed each other,” David said.
Oh man. I first got something along these linesin an e-mail fwd. I thought it sounded false, and asked the sender for some cites. I got send the list of links (top.) This sounds… interesting, yet infuriating. I, personally, hate metal. I prefer punk. But this just sounds… something. Wow, I sound articulate. Anyway, I just wanted to share this with you guys. I hope this is, or will become(at least) a great debate.
Okay. So high school science experiments, with no peer review are now acceptable proof of a fact? I read all your links; all of them are from around the same time period, and only one of them says “U.S. Researchers” and is later amended to contain the fact quoted above (and which I note was left out of the OP).
Right. And D&D causes suicide, too. :rolleyes:
Find me a more recent article following up on this particular study (such as it is) and I might begin to believe there’s something to it. Otherwise, we have a newspaper reporting something on a slow news day that other outlets picked up on because it “proved” something they desperately wanted proven.
(Yes, I suppose this kid counts as a researcher - even a U.S. Researcher - but, please.)
I’ll bet he was using Anthrax’s Attack of the Killer B’s CD or something bad like that. If he HAD to use Anthrax he could have at least used Sound of White Noise. Actually I think that he should have used something more musical, like Iron Maiden or Virgin Steele and not some crap.
I’m also willing to bet that all of ONE mouse died and he wanted to blame it on the music. :rolleyes: maybe I should do something like this and see what I get.
That’s exactly what I was thinking while reading this, Joe. Intense loud noise can cause confusion and disorientation, and possibly mess with your balance. Did he control for the possibility of the volume being the culprit rather than the type of music?
But, doesn’t everyone know that Heavy Metal must be played as loud as the speaker will go, and Classical no louder than a whisper? (again with the :rolleyes: ) So of course those are the volumes that should be tested at.
Pity this kid never met the guy who used to live down the street from us in IV - we always knew when he was done with finals, because he played “Ride of the Valkyries” loud enough that it could be heard almost down to the beach (7 or 8 blocks). We kinda enjoyed it, though.
Oh, and Scylla - I actually checked the web for articles on “heavy metal” and “health” and all I got was information on Mercury and other heavy elements.
Not only that, but since the mice were running in mazes, there’s another factor he should have accounted for.
According to http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cargocul.htm, an experiment performed by Young in 1937 demonstrated that rats rely at least partially on auditory cues from the creaky floor they are running on to remember how to run a maze. If the mice in the high schooler’s experiment were subjected to music loud enough to impair their hearing, it would take vital auditory clues away from the mice as they were running the maze.
At this juncture, I feel it is my solemn and patriotic duty to inform you that the tract you are referring to has been MSTed – that is, subjected to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment.
One of the best Chick parodies yet, Tracer. Steve Jackson had a few decent ones, too . . .
As to the metal/classical issue, though . . . what about crossovers? I mean, Metallica played with the SF Orchestra. Trans-Siberian Orchestra is comprised of members of Savatage. So, what . . . do the mice develop multiple-personality disorder listening to them?
