The behavioral data suggest that Mozart’s music had a
beneficial influence on both learning stages (priming and
consolidation). However, this positive influence was not
reflected in the EEG measures analyzed. Only respondents
of the MM group, who prior to and after training listened
to music, showed a clear cut difference in EEG activity in
comparison with the other three groups. One possible
explanation could be that the longer exposure to music of
the MM respondents – in comparison with the SM and
MS respondents – might have had a more marked
and permanent influence on brain activity subserving
Fig. 5. Means and standard deviation (error bars) of Event-related
synchronization/desynchronization (ERS/ERD) of EEG data in the lower
-1 and upper-a frequency range displayed by respondents of the four
groups (CG, MM, MS, SM) during problem solving.
N. Jausˇovec et al. / Clinical Neurophysiology 117 (2006) 2703–2714 2709
spatio-temporal reasoning, which could be detected by the
EEG methodology used. This question was further
addressed in the second experiment introducing an additional
music condition.