Growing up, my parents did nothing out of the ordinary to help enhance my intelligence. I brushed my teeth, and went to bed. As I got older, I started to babysit for family friends. I assumed that I would put the kids to bed the same way my parents put me to bed. However, not long after I was born, a study came out saying that parents said that they would play Mozart and other classical artist as the kids went to bed. There were rumors that playing the music for them as they went to bed helped to increase their intelligence, so the parents asked me to play the music for the kids as well.
There were some setbacks that came with these findings though. There was no measurement of long-term enhancement, it applied only to tasks administered directly after listening to the music, and the findings were solely based on college students.
So who knows, maybe I am better off without being raised with listening to Mozart, or maybe I'm not, but with the evidence that has been shown, it doesn't seem to make much of a difference.
Researchers have found, for the future, that babies learn better from playing actively than they do from videos, which may also contribute to a more active population in the future.
Dev Mozart Effect
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I wonder if there is any truth to this effect or if it's entirely environmental...does the music put a person in a mindset to behave more intellectually and therefore do better intellectually? For example, whenever I dress up and interact with other people who seem intelectual, just through the environment, my mind feels more clear and I choose my words much more carefully, discussing topics I wouldn't normally know how to talk about. I do think if you are exposed to these types of situations or even exposed to classical music regularly throughout your childhood, this would have a positive impact on a person. Whether it really enhances their intelligence, or just causes them to believe that their intelligence is enhanced, a person's mindset sometimes is all it takes to change the outcome of a test or their behavior.
Maybe the true difference here is the state that the music puts the participant in before performing the task at hand. The music may relax the person and cause them to do better on more complex tasks, therefore giving the illusion of more intelligent mental capabilities. Who knows? I'd like to see a more in depth analysis of the research findings.
I have heard of the Mozart effect as well. What I have heard mainly about this is having your unborn child listen to it, during development to become more intelligent. Very similar to this type of Mozart effect, there has been no real proof of if this is actually doing anything to the children's intelligence. I don't think that there would be any harm in doing so, but it doesn't seem like there is any benefit either.