Music, Mice & Mazes: David Merrell and His Famous Experiment

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