# Mozart in the head again



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I will make no comment here, scatological or otherwise. Here is the url, purely in the interest of science:

http://www.livescience.com/16800-embargoed-mozart-lost-opus-colonoscopy-music.html

:tiphat:


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)




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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Hmm. That cow looks a might 'stocky'.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I knew Mozart had to be good for something . . .


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## graaf (Dec 12, 2009)

Given the main idea, maybe this thread should be named "Mozart hits the fan"?


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

whoa... pretty funny article, and interesting contribution, Hilltroll (and funny reply, graaf).

As for the merits, well, like the commentator says, "Of course, there's a big "but" to this research. The study involves just two doctors each performing only a few dozen colonoscopies. Thus, the increased adenoma detection rates that the researchers observed aren't strongly statistically significant."

Not to forget that it wasn't a double blind study... which would be impossible to do anyway - because the doctors did know that they were listening to the music and being studied, so, they might have just paid more attention under these circumstances.

To have a true double blind study, we'd need to select a number of doctors who did not know Mozart's music at all and wouldn't be able to tell Mozart's music from other composer's.

Then we'd divide them in two groups, and play some other composer during the colonoscopies performed by one group, and Mozart for the other group. Research assistants scoring these things shouldn't know what music is being played either. Even better, a third group would have no music whatsoever, and ideally, doctors wouldn't know that they were part of a study, although some ethical concerns would come from this (that's why I said it is pretty much impossible to implement such study in the purest of ways).

If a large study like this showed statistical significance, then they'd be onto something.

The way it's been done, there is no possible conclusion to take from this.


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