David Merell whose is a student
In Virginia and he did a experiment
we did an experiment and I just called it
in my own notes the destructive effect
of rock and the salutary of effect
of classical music and i think i will
just have David come up and explain to
you what he did and what his experiment
was and what it demonstrated
So David
David: Good Morning
First of all I Just like to say
thank you to Mrs. Ogdmen for inviting me
here to be able to speak to you this
morning and I would like to um say thank
you for the wonderful introduction as
he said my name is David Merell I'm a
Junior or senior at Nansemond River
High school and i received a lot of
recognition for this project which I'm
here today to tell you about
I Guess i can start off by
*inaudible Speaking from the crowd
David : Hows that Is that, is that better
Okay Alright As i said my name is
David Merrel and I' here to tell you about
an experiment that i received a lot of
recognition for. I have been brought up
In my family and my family has been
big on music they, they seen, what
you know the big effect that music can
have on the use of today and on society.
and they always brought me up teaching me
that heavy metal that sort of music
really isn't good for ya and that
classical music is something that is good
There's nothing bad about it and just to
In general realize just how powerful
music is and I have been doing research
and our family is , you know has books
and things like that about music
and one day we came across this research
that Michael Bowlen about how he used
music he used classical music and atonal
sounds on groups of mice and ran them
through a maze to see what, what the
effects would have on them and I said
that pretty neat, so I came up with a
project or devised a project that would
somewhat simulate a learning environment
for mice for what I did or the title of
the project is music mice amazes the
classic rock is growing that continues
this is a, this actually second year that
i have done this project
in this project my hypothesis was that.
Music would have an effect on the
learning abilities of white male mice
classical music will have a positive
effect whereas hardrock music will have
a negative effect and as I said this is
Second year I've done this project and the 1st year.
I did this project I obtained eighteen
white male mice from a local pet store.
and divided them into three different
groups. A hardrock group or heavy metal
group which would listen to Anthrax,
stunt 442 and at the time since we really
didnt know any good heavy metal groups we
just went to K-Mart and ask the clerk
behind the desk whats a good heavy metal
group and she handed us this CD and after
about ten seconds of listening to it
we found that's the one wanted
*crowd is laughing from David joke
Um we then ah, we also had a classical
group. Which we played a variety of different classical
songs to it, it didn't matter which ones
as long as it was classical. So we divided
this mice into three different groups
and we began running them through a fixed
maze over the course of the next four weeks
and as time progressed the mice either
got faster or slower and ah the classical
or I'll go into that later. But
the interesting thing about first year
I did this project is that actually I
had to cut it short because the heavy
music had made these mice who can't
understand words just the sounds alone
had made them so violent that within
three weeks there was only one mouse left
in the rock group
* crowd is laughing
It was rather interesting because
the mice they just they seem to be
so disconent with one another and
they would separate themselves from the
other mice and then you know they just
turn around and kill one of the other mice
For as the classical mice and controlled mice
they were perfectly fine with one another
They didn't have problems what so ever
it was, it was interesting and so my
after doing this project for my first
year. I had a lot of suggestion and found
out a lot problems with my project
This is a background of the project
which I just described and as I said
there a lot of problem with the project
there weren't enough subject for
statistical analysis. I'm sorry if you
can't see but were try more or less the
uh. Like I said there weren't enough mice
for statistical analysis i only had 18
mice that first year. So the second year
I did my project i had 72 also in the
first year like I said I obtained the mice
From a local pet store and I did know
what their age , their weight uh what
their genetic background was which had.
which could have an affect on the outcome
of the overall project
Their uh their living condition as
I would say was one of the big problems
They were able to interact with another
and they were also given a
very unrealistic music environment
The two variable groups which listen to
music as I said uh were subjective to
their music 24 hours a day at 90 decibels
and that's a little extreme its kinda loud
and its all day long and so i looked
at these problems and I decided that
it needed a lot of work
So what I did um was i obtained
the 72 white male mice I said but this
year I quoted them from
Harland Spray Darley which is a
laboratory which specializes in the use
of animals in uh research each mouse
each is mouse 4 to 5 weeks old
15 to 20 grams in weight and uh
and their all genetically
similar their all out friend mice
when I received the mice I put them
all to separate 5 gallon aquariums
thus eliminating the possibility of
um subject destruction
*crowd is laughing from joke
I, I also gave the each mouse a
ceratin amount of food light and water
The uh receives 12 hours of light and
music this year was kept 10 at hours a day
at 70 decibels which seem a little more
moderate than 24 hours a day at 90 decibels
the uh 72 mice which i had obtained from
Harland Spray Garley i dived into three
different groups again but this year
i had a small variation of that I
had the control group once again which
was suppose to simulate just how
much a regular mouse should learn .
the classical group this year
listen to mozart and i decide on mozart
because through the past year the
research i had done it seem that mozart
was used the most in other studies done
with in music and then I used once again
Used the anthrax Cd or the hard
rock group this is a picture of the
anthrax cd and it was probably the only
side of the cover that I can show was
decent I'm going to play a you a
very short excerpt from the cd um
if i made it lengthy i don't think
anybody would stay
*inaudible speaking from the crowd
*David putting the cd in the cd player
*anthrax is playing
*Crowd Laughs
* David switches to Classical music
*inaudible speaking from david
*Mozart is playing
That was probably much more pleasant
Upon arrival each mouse was
individually weighed in order to make
sure that they were healthy and
throughout the rest of project each
week the mice were weighed
in order to make sure they stayed
within the healrhy growth curve if the
mice were to suddenly drop in weight the
project would have to stop because
the indication of stress or sickness
caused by the music and this graph
gives you a, a color version I guess of
the growth curve of the mice the red
represent the hard rock or heavy metal
the green represent the control and the
blue represent the classical even though
it looks likes the hard rock makes a
drastic change from week 2 to 3
it still remain within the growth
curve what I did was upon arrival
caused I said the mice were
put into their individual cages
and then they were given a one week
period in which to acclimate to their
new environment this allowed the mice to
settle down and get comfortable with
with their, their surrounding after which
their run through a fixed maze three
times in order to get a base starting
time after they run through maze the
first time they were then subjected to
music the following week and then were run
through the maze another, additional
three times. I continued
to play the music for the next
four weeks and randomized through
the maze three times after each week
and by the first week they knew
the maze you know or they sort a got a
feel for it and then second week
and the third week that's a
little picture of the treat they got
at the end and the fourth week
by this time the a control and classical
knew it very well and the hard
rock I'd hate to say but did not.
This gives a, a data table of the
average run time in seconds as
well as the weights in grams the
week one at the top is the
baseline starting time the initial
one before the music had been started
and all three groups started out
pretty close to ten minutes.
Which about 590 seconds then
throughout the course of the week
the control group manage to get
their time down to 307 seconds
which is about and average of 5 minutes.
The classical group manages to get
their time all the way down to 106
seconds which is about a minute 46
so compared to the normal or average
mouse one that listen to classical is
above average . The hard rock mice
increase their time from 10 minutes
to 1825 seconds which is about
30 minutes and started having
problems with this actually
because during, while running the
control and classical while I did
this during uh early part of the school
year school it was fine because it take
me, you know two hours or
sometime to ten minutes you know
half and hour maybe tops doing for
all the mice for the classical but with
the hard rock by the end of the fourth
week it was taking take me 5 and a
half to 6 hours a day to run these
mice and it was, was getting rather
extreme
* crowd laughing
This give a,a graph of the run time
and at the left it shows that all
three groups started pretty much
at the same time. But then by the
time you progress through the week
the classical which is in blue decrease
their time by 8 and a half minutes
which is went up the control went
up slightly or cut off 5 minutes from
their time and the hard rock went
straight for the bottom they added 20
minutes to their time.
This gives a, a delta which is a
difference between weeks and it
just shows how much time they were
able to, able to cut from the previous
week and by week 4 to 1 it show the
number which I had just said that they
control mange to cut off 291 seconds
the classical 503 seconds and hard
rock had added 1256 seconds this give
a delta graph which is the data table
which I showed you but now its in a graph
and actually shows how the
control between week 1 and 2
actually did slightly better than the
classical but then between 2 and 3,
3 and 4 the classical seem to jump far
ahead. This give a overall graph of the
groups and it shows a real vivid picture
of just how drastics changes were between
the groups after accumulating all my data
which was actually 852 bits whereas the
year before as I mention 30 something
after i seen the data i took it to a
statistician whose was Dr. Mike Doveach
assistant professor of Mathematics and
statics at Old Dominion University.
and when I explained my project to him
and gave him the data he decided
to run three different test and he ran a
Manova test which useda a null
hypothesis, Anova test which looks
for statistical difference from week to
week and a Tukey studentized range
test the most importnat of these was the
Tukey studentized range test this looked
for a statistical significance difference
between one groups to see if you know.
If it was important enough to even
notice and a normal statistical,
statistically significant fact would
be to be a P of value of 0.1 and
after accumulating the data and
making the result we found that between
the classical and control this is from
week 4 to 1 there was a P Value of .01
we then ran out the number later and
found out it was even more significant
it went all the way out to P value of .001
The control to hard rock was as well
found to be significant or
statistically significant out of P value
of .01 it was as well, we as well
went further with that and found out that
it statically significant to a P value
of .0001.and the classical to hard
rock was as well statically significant
at a P Value .01 and extened to a P Value
0001. In conclusion I can say that
music does indeed have an effect
on the learning abilities on white male
mice. Classical music has a very
positive effect on the learning abilities
whereas the hard rock music has
a even greater negative effect on the
learning abilities and a side from the
fact which I have been able shown you
today. I can say from my own view
and my own opinion from observing
the mice that its, its seem to be not
only digress their ability to learn but
their ability to cope one with another
and in fact with the mice after the second
year of this doing their project as I
said i had keep them seperate this year
to try to eliminate the fighting after
the project i would take all the mice to a
local pet store to just get rid of them
and give them away and when I did this
with the classical and control mice
I would put them into a or
just one group at a time I'll
put them into two aquariums
and take them away thas 24 mice
in 20 gallons. and I thought that
wasn't that bad and it wasn't for
the classical and control they were fine
with one another .However when I put
the hardrock mice in there and within
an hour they had just begun fighting so
severely that i had to separate all the
mice and gave them about a week just
to you know chill out I guess you can say
crowds laughing
and sorta, sorta of calm down that
because I guess the music
had made them so uptight
and just you know had been putting
these bad messages into them. That they
couldn't handle one another and so I gave
them about a week just to calm down
and settle down and actually play a little
classical music to them and see if it
would reverse the effects so by, after
about a week or so you know i put
them back in and they were still a
little feisty but i magane to get them
to the store in time. It's just it been
an interesting project and i have
enjoyed doing it and enjoyed the
result i have found as well as the
research I've done and its too bad
that its not a subject that is widely i
guess you can say publicized as
it should be because there i found
multiple areas of research which are
extremely significant whether it how
the great effects of classical music on
preschooler learning the ABC's or
something like or whether its you know
just bad the moral of hard rock music and
something interesting is that these mice
could not understand the lyrics but the
music alone was bad enough much less the
lyrics which the people were subjected to
but the mice were not and that's
something that I think is pretty
significant as well.Once again i would
like to thank you for the opportunity
to be here to be able to present this
project to you.
Thank you
*crowd clapping