[N]ew research from the U.K. has found cognitive benefits from listening to one of the most popular pieces in the repertoire: Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.
In an experiment, the work’s evocative Spring section, “particularly the well-recognized, vibrant, emotive and uplifting first movement, had the ability to enhance mental alertness and brain measures of attention and memory,” reports Northumbria University psychologist Leigh Riby. He describes his study in the journal Experimental Psychology.
Participants reported feeling more alert while the Spring concerto was playing, and the EEGs suggest the music impacted “two distinct cognitive processes,” according to Riby. He reports the piece appeared to produce “exaggerated effects” on one component of mental activity that is tied with the “emotion-reward systems within the brain.”
This leads him to “other programmatic qualities of music” as the benefactor. Perhaps Spring really does evoke a feeling of springtime deep in our brains, lifting our moods and, at least momentarily, stimulating higher levels of cognitive functioning.
His findings may shed light on another recent study, which found people can improve their moods if they make a conscious effort to do so while listening to a different classical selection: Aaron Copland’s Rodeo. That piece, too, evokes pleasant imagery–cowboys, horses, a whirlwind of motion. It’d be interesting to see what impact it has on cognitive quickness.