As I understand it the Mozart effect originally was reported in a 1993 letter to the editor of _Nature_, which described an experimental study showing that listening to Perahia and Lupu's rendition of Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D, boosted the listeners' performance on a test of spatial reasoning relative to control groups that either listened to a relaxation tape or received silence. The principal researcher, Francis Rauscher, has an interesting background and is also involved in other promising work involving music and psychology. She has a web page: http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/psychology/biofrr.htm Efforts to replicate and extend the original findings have been mixed. The following is a reference to an informative student paper in pdf format that summarizes the original research, media reactions, and subsequent research findings: http://www.stanford.edu/~lswartz/acad/mozarteffect.pdf Lyle K. Grant | Professor | Centre for Psychology, Athabasca University, 1 University Drive, Athabasca AB, Canada T9S 3A3 | Ph: (780) 675-6236 Fax: (780) 675-6186 | http://psych.athabascau.ca/html/lyle/lgrant.shtml