Re: Can listening to music help a child put a puzzle together?

The question you ask is one that has been studied over and over again: 
does listening to music affect one's ability to do certain tasks?

One of the most well-known experiments was published in 1993. The study 
(Rauscher, et al, Nature, vol. 365, 1993) reported that when college 
students listened to ten minutes of a Mozart sonata (compared to silence 
or instructions to relax) they performed better on a spatial reasoning 
task. (Spatial tasks are those that require the brain to organize objects 
within a certain space, like puzzles.) This effect is known as the Mozart 
Effect, and the idea is that the complex nature of Mozart's music 
stimulates an area of the brain that processes images and so helps it to 
process more accurately.

Other studies measuring this same effect, however, have not had the same 
results. (Stough, et al. Personality & Individual Differences, 1994; vol. 
17).

What can be said for certain is that music does indeed have an effect on 
the brain. If you notice on your next shopping trip, for example, 
background music is present at almost any place you go. Many stores, 
offices, restaurants, factories, even elevators have background music 
playing. This is because research has shown that music has an effect on 
people's moods, emotions, even behaviors, whether we notice it or not. In 
1994, a study in Italy found that a group of adults and children, 
regardless of musical experience, were able to match pieces of music with 
various emotions: happiness, sadness, anger and fear. (Robazza, C., 
Macaluso, C., D'Urso, V. (1994). Emotional reactions to music by gender, 
age, and expertise. Perception & Motor Skills, vol. 79, p. 939-944.)
Other studies have demonstrated that people listening to sad music 
perceive neutral faces as being sadder, and that people listening to happy 
music perceive neutral faces as being happier. (Bouhuys, A.L., Bloem, 
G.M., Groothuis, T.G.G. (1995). Induction of depressed and elated mood by 
music influences the perception of facial expressions in healthy subjects. 
Journal of Affective Disorders, vol. 33, pp. 215-226.)

In any case, despite the contradictions, there are many experts who say 
that listening or studying music can indeed enhance one’s performance on 
tasks. The College Board reported in 1996 that students who studied music 
scored higher on both the verbal and math sections of the SAT than 
students who did not study music. According to others, some of the best 
engineers and scientists are those that study music. Depending on the 
study you read, however, the answers vary as far as whether listening to 
music will help you solve a puzzle faster.  If you have any other 
questions about this topic, feel free to email me at 
lynna@uclink4.berkeley.edu

Good luck on your project!

Lynna Tsou