The effect of music of

mental rotation.
 Introduction
• One of the earliest work done regarding mental imagery was mental rotation
by Shepard and Metzler (1971). Mental rotation refers to the ability of an
individual to mentally rotate representations of two-dimensional (2D) or
three-dimensional (3D) objects (Shepard & Metzler, 1971). They were
interested to investigate the use of spatial representations as in how
individuals mentally represent and manipulate physical objects in their minds.
• It is often claimed that music can somehow improve the mind, not only
through aesthetic and personal development, but also through the
development of intellectual skills such as abstract thinking and logical
reasoning.
 Statement of Problem
• Findings of the effect of music on spatial tasks are rather
inconsistent at present especially (see Newman et al., 1995;
Rauscher et al., 1993; Steele, Ball, & Runk, 1997; Stough, Kerkin,
Bates, & Mangan, 1994). Also, the underlying mechanism of the
effect of music on learning remains unclear (Lehmann & Seufert,
2017).
 Objectives
1.3.1 General Objective
To investigate the effect of music on mental rotation performance.

1.3.2 Specific Objectives

To measure the average mental rotation performance in terms of
reaction time of the psychology undergraduates in UNIMAS.
 Hypothesis
H1: There is no significant difference between the performance of
mental rotation task in terms of total reaction time and conditions of
the environment which are music and silent conditions.

H2: There is no significant relationship between angular difference

and reaction time.
Conceptual Framework

Figure 1.0. Conceptual framework of the study.

 Literature Review
In Shepard's and Metzler's (1971) classic mental rotation study, the subjects were required to
identify whether the presentation of two 3D block figures in different orientations were the
same or different. They found that the response time of the subjects rose linearly with the
increase of angular difference in the orientation between the two block figures which ranged
from 0 to 180 degrees.
The Mozart effect happens when performance on spatial cognitive tasks elevates after being
exposed to Mozart’s compose. In the study of Aheadi et al. (2009), they tested the hypothesis
on non-musicians and musicians. The notion was that the Mozart effect arises from listening
to complex music and that results in activation of the right hemisphere regions of the parietal
lobes, which is also involved in spatial cognition (Rauscher et al., 1993).
However, not all studies yielded positive results to support the idea of Rauscher et al. (1993).
Controversies were going on as others were unable to replicate the results which they
discovered that exposure to Mozart’s compose did not significantly led to an improvement in
spatial-temporal performance (Newman et al., 1995; Steele et al., 1997; Stough et al., 1994).
 Methodology
Research Design
In this study, experiment with a 2 (condition: silence and Mozart’s music) x 5 (angular
difference in orientation: 0, 45, 90, 135, 180) repeated measure (within-group) design was
employed.
Population Sample
The population sample of this study consisted of 30 psychology undergraduates from Faculty
of Cognitive Sciences and Human Development in University Malaysia Sarawak. Purposive
sampling.
 Procedure
Mental
Practice trial 10 mins break
rotation

Mental
rotation with Download data
music
 Method of Analysis
Paired t-test
H1: There is no significant difference between the performance of
mental rotation task in terms of total reaction time and conditions of
the environment which are music and silent conditions.

Pearson’s correlation
H2: There is no significant relationship between angular difference
and reaction time.
 Findings
To measure the average mental rotation performance in terms of reaction time in different
angle rotation of the psychology undergraduates in UNIMAS.

Descriptive Statistics
  N Mean Std. Deviation Variance
silenceangle0time 30 6.0203 3.01155 9.069
silenceangle45time 30 10.0448 10.51180 110.498
silenceangle90time 30 6.9097 4.03128 16.251
silenceangle135time 30 8.4632 5.36538 28.787
silenceangle180time 30 8.6196 6.76942 45.825
Valid N (listwise)
30      
 Findings
To measure the average mental rotation performance in terms of reaction time in different
angle rotation of the psychology undergraduates in UNIMAS.

Descriptive Statistics

 musicangle0time N Mean Std. Deviation Variance

30 5.6699 3.55588 12.644
musicangle45time
30 5.4993 3.03070 9.185
musicangle90time
30 9.9475 19.79437 391.817
musicangle135time
30 7.4006 5.54231 30.717
musicanle180time
30 8.0578 6.62954 43.951
Valid N (listwise)
30      
 Findings
There is no significant difference between the performance of mental
rotation task in terms of total reaction time and conditions of the
environment which are music and silent conditions (p > 0.05)
 Findings
There is no significant relationship between angular
difference and reaction time (p > 0.05)
Correlations
 angulardifference Pearson Correlation
angulardifferen silencemeanti
ce
1
me
.364
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
  5
.547
5
silencemeantime Pearson Correlation .364 1
Sig. (2-tailed)
.547  
N 5 5
 Discussion
• The findings of this study are aligned with the findings of Gilleta et
al. (2003), Newman et al. (1995), Steele et al. (1997), and Stough et
al. (1994) which they did not find significant evidence that Mozart
would lead to an enhancement of spatial ability.
• However, the small difference portrayed by participants in the
music condition might support the idea of Hetland (2000) that
Mozart effect exists, but only in certain type of spatial task that
demands mental rotation without the presence of physical model.
• The classic findings of Shepard and Metzler (1971), Gardony et al.
(2014), Cooper (1975), and Cooperau and Shepard (1973) were not
successfully replicated in this study.