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Document Type

Research Paper

Abstract

Spatial reasoning has many applications to human functioning. Spatial reasoning is utilized greatly when studying geometry and other forms of mathematics as well as music. Previous research has shown that involvement in or listening to music is correlated with higher performance on spatial tasks. The current study investigated spatial reasoning abilities of college students. The researcher studied twenty music majors and twenty non-music majors, controlling for gender. All participants were administered a subtest of the "Purdue Spatial Visualization Test" (1976). It was hypothesized that the music majors would perform better on the test than non-music majors. Furthermore, based on previous research, it was hypothesized that males would perform better than females in both groups. The males scored significantly higher than the females on the spatial task. However, no significant difference was found for the spatial scores of music majors compared with non-music majors. The results of this study have implications for school curricula and help provide a better understanding of the relationship between music, gender, and spatial skills.

Publication Date

2002

Journal Title

Conference Proceedings: Undergraduate Social Science Research Conference

Volume

6

Issue

1

First Page

57

Last Page

67

Copyright

©2002 by the University of Northern Iowa

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Publisher

University of Northern Iowa

City

Cedar Falls, IA

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