Janet Mills, who is a Royal Inspector of Schools in the U.K. lauds Spychiger’s music-emphasis curriculum “...because it questions the educationally unquestionable.” She adds, “1 have little doubt that music can, under particular circum- stances, improve the mind. ... What I am sometimes less certain about is what ... leads to this improvement

Andrew J. Waters, of University College London, also emphasizes the numerous components of music, the importance of identifying transfer-relevant features of music listening and playing. He also notes that some transfer effects may be directly mediated by music while others may be indirect, such as secondary to a mood change induced by music. Dr. Waters points out that short-term effects of exposure to music are easier to study than arc long-term effects and believes the short-term effects must be very robust “...before we can be confident that the whole enterprise will be worthwhile.” 6

Summary

In summary. there is an active dialogue among music educators and research workers on the extent to which music has positive transfer effects to various cognitive abilities and processes. Although there is not agreement on this point, there seems to be agreement that future research should focus on the analysis of the various components both of musical listening and of instrumental performance to identify processes that could have transfer effects to other academic subjects and domains of mental activity. It seems unlikely that much progress will be made by additional demonstrations or failures to demonstrate transfer effects without this information and a theoretical context within which to formulate and test hypotheses.

The expectation of a full understanding of transfer effects at this early stage of research is premature. One ought not to be concerned about the current lack of consensus, be- cause this is a normal part of the scientific enterprise. Rather, we should be delighted that the subject has become important, because it has been largely ignored in the past. We can look forward to exciting developments in the search to fully under- stand the roles of music in cognitive processes and behavior.

— N. M. Weinberger

Overy, K. (1998). Discussion Note: Can music really “improve” the mind? Psychology of Music. 26: 97-99.

MacPherson, S. (1922). The Music Education oft/ic Child, Lon- don: Williams, p. 13.

A detailed bibliography of cognitive transfer effects is beyond the scope of this article. Here is a representative sample of publications. For transfer effects based on using the same type of reasoning see Reeves,L.

 and Weisberg, R.W. (1994) The role of content and abstract information in analogical transfer. Psychol. Bull., 115: 381- 400. For transfer effects involving spatial learning, see McFarland, R. A. and Kennison, RE (1988). Asymmetrical effects of music upon spatial-sequential learning. J. Gen. Psychol., 115: 263-272. For transfer effects related to reading and to different levels of reading ability see Benson, N. J., Lovett, M. W. and Kroeber, C’. L. (1997). Training and transfer- of-learning effects in disabled and normal readers: Evidence of specific deficits. J. Exp. Child Psvchol. 64: 343-366. Transfer effects are sufficiently well-documented to permit their use to validate computer models of cognitive processes, e.g., Robins, A.. (1996). Transfer in cognition. Connection Science: J. Neural Cornput., Artif. Intell. & Cog. Res.. 1996, 8:

185-203.

4The responses to Overy’s query can be found in Psychology of Musk’, 1998, 26, 197-210. I do not provide separate footnotes for the respondents but do identify them in the text.

See, e.g., “Music and Cognitive Achievement in Children”, MRN, Fall 1994, 1(2))

Evidence to date suggests that long term effects. e.g., of learning to play a musical instrument, are stronger than short term exposure to music. I trust that Dr. Waters would agree to the importance of studying long-term effects of instrumental music regardless of the strength of short-term passive listening effects.