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Re: Musician's IQ



Dear list,

I've been reading the discussion on musicians and intelligence.  As an
experimental psychologist, I see a  major problem in the
interpretation of any data about the IQ of musicians:   Even if it
were found that musicians were smarter than non-musicians, and better
musicians were even smarter, a question about the direction of
causality would arise.  Are people better musicians because they are
smarter or vice-versa?

Research that was seriously interested in the effects of music on
intelligence would have to use identical twins who differed in musical
training, or at least take out the effects of the IQs of the parents
through covariance analysis.

Cheers,
Al
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Albert S. Bregman, Emeritus Professor
Psychology Department, McGill University
1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue
Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1.
Office: Phone: (514) 398-6103
 Fax: (514) 398-4896
Residence phone & fax: (514) 484-2592
www.psych.mcgill.ca/labs/auditory/Home.html
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