Subject: Re: Musician's IQ From: Al Bregman <al.bregman@xxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 22:37:16 -0400 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>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 ------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------